Gen X6 5 One Promise
by Cat Carroll
Summary: Final tale in the X-6 saga. As one of the family struggles for life, the others must acknowledge what they are in order to save him and find the missing.
1. Budgets and Crisis

Gen X-6 (5) - Once Promise  
  
Rated: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: (Takes a deep breath) Dark Angel and the concept of Manticore and all that belongs to James Cameron but the rest of the characters and the whole storyline, which really picks up at S1 BBWW and from that point on is totally mine and original is once again mine so don't use it without permission or anything like this and since I'm not going for monetary gain don't bother to sue unless you want a '97 Saturn with a blown head gasket that is about to be run through the nearest car crusher I can find. (Smiles) Got it? Good.  
  
A/N: Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we at the final chapter in the X-6 saga. And yes, when I say final, I mean seriously, not going to be an X-6 (6). It's been an awesome ride and I thank everyone who has stuck in here with me for the last couple of years and enjoyed reading this series as much as I have enjoyed writing it. But hey, don't bid everyone good-bye yet, because we still have one last wild ride to go....  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jhondie sat in her office behind the large desk that was covered in paperwork. She frowned at the columns of numbers in front of her, making small notes with her pen and occasionally turning to her computer to make a few corrections. The corrections tended to cause the frown to increase rather than decrease. If she had to name the one thing that she absolutely hated most about her position as chief of staff, it would be the yearly budget. It was vital to the well being of the hospital. She knew that. But there was nothing more boring than looking over every financial figure for the hospital from salaries to new machines to the number of band-aids that were estimated to be needed for the next year.  
  
And then she was going to have to present the budget to the Board of Directors and listen to them whine about how the raise she was trying to get for the nurses was going to take away from the profitability of the hospital. A bunch of silk suits trying to tell a doctor that they knew more about the needs of a hospital. Medical administration, Jhondie thought disdainfully. What did they know about the importance of a good nurse? They had never relied on someone trained to react instantly to an order so that a patent's life could be saved. They knew the numbers on the paper, never the broken and battered bodies that came through the door in hopes they would be able to leave whole once more. None of them had ever had to tell a family that a loved one didn't make it. None of them had ever told a family that a loved one had made it despite impossible odds.  
  
Jhondie would admit that as much as she enjoyed being the top dog around the hospital; the day-to-day duties were really starting to annoy her. Maybe it was just because it was budget season. Maybe she wanted to go back to just being a surgeon. It had actually been a couple of weeks since she had scrubbed in for a surgery. Two painfully long weeks of budgets and analyses and planning and meetings. Everyone wanted their say in how the money was going to be distributed and no matter how much a department got, it wasn't going to be enough. Jhondie had hung around late at nights just so she would be able to get into an OR, but as long as she was there a million little things would crop up that only the chief could handle. It was nice to be needed, but it would have been nicer to do what she really wanted to be doing.  
  
And there was one other thing that had been bothering her in the last month or so. Daniel's article had caused quite a stir. That was the nicest way of putting it. At least three senior officials in the Pentagon had resigned, the president was insisting on a full investigation and everyone else was denying that they knew any of it. At first they had tried to deny that this was real and demanded that Dan Guevara give up his sources to prove the allegations. They didn't understand why they couldn't intimidate him in the slightest. It helped that "The Truth" and all of its wealth and power protected him. But the guy seemed to always know the right thing to say to sideslip any demands, including a Congressional committee. They threatened to cite him. He asked if that was a challenge and all of them got very quiet. The three members of the panel all had something that they would prefer to keep quiet and there was no doubt from the glint in Guevara's eyes that he knew exactly what those things were.  
  
Jhondie was proud of Daniel sticking by his convictions, but she was more proud of him for other reasons when he didn't cave in. She had told him her whole story of Manticore and how it affected her life. It was all in the article but under a false name. And there was a lot of speculation on who these people really were. Jhondie wasn't sure what would happen to her career if it were found out that one of the pseudonyms belonged to her. Probably get flushed down the nearest toilet. Maybe she should have been ashamed of herself to keep hiding and denying, but this was her life and nobody was going to take it from her.  
  
The phone rang, taking Jhondie out of her speculations and back into the here and now. The call panel said that the call was from the ER. That perked her up a little. Dr. Adams, the trauma surgeon, hadn't been feeling very well the day before. Maybe he had to go home and they needed to know if she was up to doing a surgery or two. Jhondie picked up the phone, at any rate grateful for the distraction from the rows of numbers that never seemed to end.  
  
"Dr. Carter!" an excitedly terrified voice cried out in response to her greeting. She recognized Dr. Perkins' voice. He was one of the new interns with the ink barely dry on his M.D. "We have a major problem in the E.R," he cried out breathlessly. "Two GSW's were brought in and one won't let us touch the other!"  
  
"Have security restrain him," Jhondie replied calmly. God, it sounded like World War III was starting in the E.R. Where was Dr. Ricker? He was the head of the E.R. He should be handling this, not her.  
  
"We tried!" Perkins answered quickly. "But they can't touch her! I swear to God, Bruce was a foot from her and then he was halfway across the room."  
  
Jhondie's stomach dropped to her feet and she really regretted the breakfast burrito she had consumed an hour before. Her? No. Oh, hell no. Please no.  
  
Her cell phone rang. Jhondie picked it up and hit talk without saying a word.  
  
"Jhondie," Heather practically sobbed from the other end. "We're in the E.R and they're trying to give him blood and oh, God, they won't listen, you...oh God..."  
  
There may have been more. Jhondie never knew if Heather tried to explain more or not. Her office door wasn't able to swing shut again by the time she hit the stairs, her lab coat flying out behind her like the tail of a comet. 


	2. Trauma Room

Dr. Perkins was not expecting to see his boss come flying out of the stairwell like a 747 coming in for a landing. People had said that the woman could move, but he had no idea what they were really talking about until she tore into the E.R., heading towards Trauma 2 and the source of the commotion.  
  
Jhondie slammed the door open, leaping right into the chaos in progress. For a second she froze, horrified at the sight in front of her. Cole. Unconscious on the table. Had to be multiple gunshot wounds. Heather half on the table beside him, nearly in hysterics. Blood. Oh God, blood was everywhere. But as much as her emotional side was sickened, unable to do anything, training had already kicked in and she was moving, barking orders and getting ready for a major fight.  
  
"Heather, move!" she yelled and then began a flow of medical jargon to the other doctors and nurses in the room, demanding drugs, equipment and tests. For a second they hesitated, not sure exactly what was going on.  
  
"I said STAT!" Jhondie snarled and then all of a sudden there was a blur of action and movement as the team came together and followed their chief's lead.  
  
Heather realized she was against a wall, unable to move as the team surrounded Cole. It was like some complex dance that Jhondie was orchestrating but with wires and tubes and everything was in a foreign language. She had no idea what Jhondie was calling for or what good it would do, but she just prayed that her aunt would know the right things needed to save his life.  
  
A light touch on her uninjured arm. Heather looked up sharply into a rather kindly Hispanic face. "I'm Dr. Ramirez," he said gently. "Let's go into the next room and take care of you, shall we?"  
  
Heather shook her head, regretting the action almost instantly. "No," she whispered, her head swimming. "I'll be fine. Help him."  
  
Ramirez's voice lowered. "Your aunt asked me to take care of you," he said very softly, like he was trying to coax a frightened puppy. Heather's eyes widened at this admission and with a desperate look back at the frantic activity surrounding Cole, allowed herself to be taken into the next room. The door swung shut behind them, but there was still a window that she could see through and she could still hear everything that was going on in there. It didn't matter that she didn't understand the procedures being called for. As long as they were working then he was alive.  
  
"Tell Jhondie that Daniel's in New York," Heather said desperately as she was put up onto the table, her eyes huge and pleading. "Tell her now." Ramirez nodded to the nurse and she scampered back into the other room quickly.  
  
"Your brother?" the doctor asked, not losing his friendly tone as he began slicing away the blood soaked material on her right side.  
  
"How do you..." Heather tried to ask, biting off her words at the sharp pain even his gentle touch was causing. Her breath came in jagged little gasps as he pulled the material away, exposing where she had been shot, the wound close to where the shoulder met the neck.  
  
"I've known Jhondie since we were interns," he replied now that they were alone. "Saw the barcode about ten years ago or so. Right before your brother's article came out, she decided that she'd rather go ahead and tell me herself. Explained a lot. And there I was feeling bad over the years when I had to quit the OR after about fifteen hours straight and she was still going strong." Heather didn't answer. She simply kept looking through the window, praying for a miracle.  
  
In the other trauma room, Jhondie had a nurse holding a phone up to her ear as her hands worked frantically. Justin's phone rang twice and then he picked up. "Hey," he greeted warmly. Any call that didn't go through at least three secretaries and was personally announced by his administrative assistant had to be family.  
  
"Justin," Jhondie said sharply. "I need Daniel at the E.R. right now. Heather and Cole are in here and we need blood."  
  
"Christ," Justin half-whispered. The phone was pulled away from his mouth as she heard him bark out an order to someone that Dan Guevara was to be on the roof in two minutes and have the magazine helicopter ready. Their pilot was a pro who had managed to break more FAA rules in a day then most pilots did in a lifetime. Getting Daniel around the New York traffic wasn't going to be a problem. Justin came back to the phone. "Are they?" he asked, not sure how to finish the sentence.  
  
"Heather, yes, Cole...I don't know," Jhondie admitted. "I think Xander and Lon are on the east coast," she added. "Have Daniel call them. We're going to need all of the blood donors that we can get." She nodded to the nurse who hung up the phone and then Jhondie was back to work with a vengeance. This was bad. God, this was bad. Why he wasn't dead already was a miracle in and of itself.  
  
Jhondie had been so careful since the article had come out. She had reduced using her enhanced abilities and even cut back on the number of hours that she worked so that people wouldn't notice that she seemed to be there sometimes for forty-eight hours straight, just like that one transgenic in the article that didn't need to sleep. She didn't want to have to deal with what would happen to her career if it was found out that she was one of those "transgenic freaks" as one of the board members had referred to the Manticore offspring. A flash of New York from years ago and Cole's smart-ass smirk as he gave the all clear. "I just never told you the rules." That was what he had said then at her amazement before crushing out a cigarette and walking away. She wondered if he ever thought she would be able to pay him back.  
  
Oh well. Here goes the career, she thought. "Ladies and gentlemen," Jhondie announced firmly. Even though there wasn't a break in the frantic activity in the room, they all seemed to pause and listen. Jhondie took a deep breath. "We are dealing with a transgenic human being. Use the blood reclamation unit to catch whatever he loses. Blood donors are on the way."  
  
The oxygen level in the room must have dropped with the sudden gasp from every person present. As they started to turn Cole onto his side so that one part of the team could work on the entrance wounds while the other worked on the exits, the barcode on his neck was quite visible and everyone had to get a peek at it. Sure, all of them had seen something about that Manticore place on TV and most had read Dan Guevara's article in "The Truth". For weeks after the article came out it was impossible to watch the evening news without some Manticore-related scandal coming out. They all knew about it, yes, but none of them had ever expected to treat one of the transgenics. And as soon as the frenzy of activity slowed, the next big question was going to be centered on how and why Dr. Carter was so familiar with them.  
  
In the other room, Heather was desperately trying to stay conscious so she would know what was happening. She could barely feel the needles they were sticking into her and even her shoulder seemed to fade into a hot sizzle. None of it could touch the sheer agony of knowing without a doubt that this was all her fault. Oh God, how could she be so stupid? She should be the one lying on the other table, not Cole. It was all her fault and she knew it. She had encouraged him. Thought it was kind of funny in a way. And now he was dying and she was going to watch it happen. Please God, she prayed silently. Please don't let him pay for my mistake. Please make him stop bleeding. Please...  
  
A nurse bustled in from the other trauma room. "Can you take regular blood?" she asked Heather sharply, peering at her like she was examining for horns...or maybe just fur and whiskers.  
  
"No," she whispered, not caring who knew what anymore. Her eyes were locked onto what was happening on the other side of the window. "I'll be fine," she sniffed. "I heal." A sob escaped her. They were all over Cole now, Jhondie orchestrating the whole thing with so much confidence that Heather could believe her aunt knew some mystical way that would bring Cole back from certain death. The nurse gave her a nod and then bustled back into the other room.  
  
"I need you to lie back now," Dr. Ramirez said to Heather. "We're going to get you up to surgery in a few minutes." He was more concerned about her mental state then getting her into surgery. She was seriously injured, yes, but it wasn't life threateningly critical. What was more critical was getting her away from Trauma 2. If the man she was brought in with didn't make it, then Ramirez was worried that the display they saw earlier would be nothing in comparison to what the young woman would do then.  
  
"I'm not going until he does," Heather replied flatly, oblivious to the tears pouring down her face. She was so focused on the other side of the window that she didn't see a nurse sliding a needle into her IV.  
  
"He's got the best trauma surgeon on the East Coast taking care of him," another nurse said soothingly. She was wildly curious about this transgenic in Trauma 2 and the young woman's connection to him, but she was too well trained to start asking questions now. Maybe later. "Dr. Carter can make miracles happen." The nurse's sweet smile was meant to be reassuring, but Heather could only see it as false hope. She had seen what happened to Cole. She wasn't a doctor, but a life-threatening injury was rather obvious.  
  
Things started to go gray a little and Heather realized she had been drugged. "No," she whispered thinly, trying to fight the effects. A nurse went to make her lie back, but Dr. Ramirez stopper her. This young lady was not going to be forced into anything. Heather was determined to stay awake and see this thing through despite the fact that the room was moving around now. Not yet. She wasn't going to go until she knew that he was going to be okay.  
  
A nurse came flying onto the room to get a monitor and for Heather the world seemed to freeze. A single high-pitched tone filled the room, her head, the whole world.  
  
Flat line.  
  
"NO!" Heather screamed, jerking towards the open door. Someone grabbed her as she collapsed into merciful darkness. 


	3. Raw Material

If the other doctors ever thought that they had seen their boss refuse to accept death before, it was nothing compared to what they saw when their patient's heart rhythm went flat. Jhondie took it as a personal offense rather than a medical condition. The others thought she was just determined to bring him back. They had no idea how much she simply refused to accept that she was going to have to tell Alicia that her brother had died. This was all out war and Jhondie didn't care if it was "his time" or not. Cole was not going to die and that was final.  
  
"We need blood now!" Dr. Ricker, the head of the E.R. yelled over the din. He knew that Dr. Carter was a brilliant surgeon, but without some raw material, there was no way this guy was going to make it into surgery.  
  
As if an answer to a prayer the trauma doors flew open with a flat bang. Jhondie looked up and felt a weakness of gratitude for a second. Justin was showing Daniel the way in and a step behind the two of them was Xander. All three men came to a screeching halt at the gory sight in front of them. Xander had seen things that were technically worse before. Had caused some of those scenes as a matter of fact. But nothing had turned his stomach like seeing his strong older brother helpless and bleeding.  
  
"Carolyn," Jhondie snapped at a nurse. "Don't just stand there! Start drawing blood now."  
  
The nurse hurried to a cabinet and grabbed two kits while Daniel and Xander yanked off their suit coats and rolled up a sleeve. Xander grabbed one kit from the nurse and to her amazement, set the needle into his own arm faster than some of the professionals that she had seen before. He started the blood flow as the nurse busily inserted a needle into Daniel. Red fluid began filling the plastic bags.  
  
"I'll check on Heather," Justin said quietly to Daniel. "Just stay here where you can do the most good." He trotted out of the room, glad that he could do something useful. It could be a pain to be around transgenics all of the time and be part of their world and then get a reminder that he was still an outsider of sorts.  
  
"Lon and Shawna are getting Janice and they'll be here in under two hours," Xander called out to Jhondie. She merely nodded in reply; too busy trying to get Cole to stabilize so they could get him into surgery.  
  
Minutes ticked by. The fresh blood was a help, but his heart still wasn't beating on it's own. Xander had never felt this helpless in his life as he watched Jhondie plunging her hand into an incision on Cole's chest. She was calling out instructions and demanding drugs as the whole team fought to bring him back.  
  
"Doctor, call it," Ricker finally said, taking a step back. They had been at it for almost twenty minutes. There was too much bleeding. Plain and simple. There was no way to find where it was coming from and this man was simply not going to live. He was the only one that was looking directly at Jhondie, most of the other staff either gaping at his boldness telling Dr. Carter to let it go, or they were going about their own appointed tasks. Consequently, Ricker was the only one to see her pupils suddenly dilate, the green eyes turning black.  
  
"No," Jhondie growled. "I will not accept that."  
  
It was rare that she used her enhanced vision in the trauma room. There was enough equipment for close ups and the risks involved were not worth the benefits. But now the risks were positively outweighed. They needed to know where the bleeding was coming from and they needed to know now. She scanned the opening in Cole's body, her vision better than any mechanical optical enhancements. And then there it was.  
  
"Nick in the aorta," she muttered. Jhondie's eyes snapped back to normal. "Nick in the aorta," she shouted. "Cauterizing wand, now."  
  
A thin metal rod slapped into her outstretched hand almost instantly. She pressed it into Cole's chest, moving it around to seal the small break that was allowing blood to pour out and keep his heart from beating. In less than a minute, the entire team could see that the bleeding had lessened significantly.  
  
Daniel had to grab Xander and shove him back in his chair when the one doctor said to call it. "She won't give up that easily," he hissed at his uncle. Daniel hoped that if she did give up that she would wait until he and Xander were out of there. Or at least until Xander had enough blood drawn to make him less able to hurt someone. God only knew what Xander was going to do if Jhondie said that was it but Daniel did know that Xander would probably start with that other doctor that wanted to give up first and work his way around the room. It seemed like an eternity passed but some of the shouts became more encouraging.  
  
"Bleeding's slowed."  
  
"Still have brain activity."  
  
"OR's prepped."  
  
And then Jhondie called for another drug. A nurse handed her a syringe and Jhondie slammed it directly into his heart. The entire team paused with baited breath.  
  
Beep.  
  
A single hill on the heart monitor rose from the flat line. Two more beeps followed and then they started coming in rapid succession.  
  
"Defib!" Ricker yelled, the wands practically leaping into his waiting hands. He shoved them into Cole's chest. "Clear!" Everyone pulled back as he fired off the machine. There was a second of a pause and then Cole's heart started picking up a more regular rhythm.  
  
"We have a pulse!"  
  
"B.P's coming up."  
  
"Trina, Marcus, grab the end of the table," Jhondie ordered as they maneuvered Cole onto his back. "We're going upstairs now." In an elegant move, she stepped to the side and then jumped onto the table so that she was on her knees, straddling Cole. She continued to work, her hands moving at an impossible pace as the rest of the team began racing them out of the room and towards the operating room.  
  
Carolyn remained behind, looking at Daniel and Xander a bit fearfully, more than a bit curious and plenty awestruck. Transgenics. In the E.R with her right now. She was barely out of nursing school and all of her friends had talked about how cool it would be to meet them and see what they could do. They had giggled over possible sexual prowess considering some of the things that had been said in the article about endurance. And now they were here looking like any regular businessmen in New York. The blonde guy wasn't too much older than her. If it weren't for the wedding band on his finger, she'd think about making a play for him. Heck, the other guy was old but he was still hot too.  
  
"Ummm," she began shyly. "How much blood can you donate?"  
  
Daniel looked over at Xander. He personally had no idea how much blood he could lose and still function. The need to know this had simply never come up before.  
  
"Three to four pints," Xander replied. The young nurse blinked. People did not lose that much blood and not have a reaction. It simply wasn't possible. But this whole day didn't seem possible now. They knew Dr. Carter. They were calling her by her first name and she knew them. That was just too weird. Her husband's magazine did that article. She must have met them through him. How weird was that?  
  
"Okay," she said carefully. "We'll take three pints from each of you for now and more if it's needed later."  
  
"Supply is coming," Daniel muttered, starting to feel a little lightheaded as his blood drained. Xander seemed completely unfazed. His bronze skin wasn't even getting pale. Daniel thought of something else. "My blood is better for Heather," he said. "It doesn't really matter, but she should get mine first."  
  
"Heather?" Carolyn questioned and then immediately brightened. "Oh! The young woman that Dr. Ramirez took up. I doubt she'll need much at all in any case. She was pretty lively down here."  
  
Daniel breathed a sigh of relief at her words. He was still worried about his uncle, but he couldn't help but be glad to hear that his little sister wasn't in nearly as much danger. Xander didn't have that luxury and as he sat there, staring at the place where his brother had nearly lost his life, he realized that he had something else to worry about as well. He reached into his jacket's inner pocket and grabbed his cell phone and CIA credentials. He flashed the badge to the nurse who paled ever so slightly.  
  
"I want security placed at the doors of this room," he said firmly. "Absolutely nobody comes in here until I give permission. And tell anyone who has blood on them from this incident that they are not to leave the hospital for a while." Despite being tethered to a needle, his blood pouring out, there was no loss of menace in his cold dark eyes.  
  
Carolyn now looked absolutely terrified. "I...ah...Dr. Carter would have to..."  
  
"Dr. Carter should not be disturbed right now, don't you think?" Xander interrupted sharply. "And I can guarantee that she will agree with me once she can be disturbed again." Under his sharp gaze, the girl practically wilted. He had years of practice at intimidation. She had a shiny new nursing school degree.  
  
"I'll let them know," she finally said and scampered quickly out of the room. Xander immediately dialed a number on his cell, contacting CIA headquarters. He ordered a cleaner team to get here ASAP. There was a lot of blood in the room and all traces of it needed to be destroyed before someone got the bright idea that they happened to have a billion dollar genetic code splashed all over them and it could be worth something. Xander knew the exact cleaners that he wanted. They would do as told and ask no questions later.  
  
Xander hung up and looked over at Daniel. "Which one of us calls your mother?"  
  
Daniel grabbed his cell. "I'll call my parents and the twins. You're handling Janice." Xander winced, not sure who got the worst end of the deal. 


	4. First Calls

"You see, ladies, it really doesn't matter how big they are," Alicia said with a bright smile as she held her opponent down with one hand. Her fingers were against a pressure point and he did not want those fingers to come together again. Once was all he needed to understand that he would spend the rest of his life in this position if that were what she desired. "As we've been telling men for years, size really doesn't matter. It *is* how you use it."  
  
That got a ripple of laughter from the women in the room. Alicia let Paul up and thanked him for being a good sport. He was a police officer that worked with the self-defense portion of the community outreach program. It had started a few years after martial law had ended in Seattle as a way for people to start trusting police again. Paul enjoyed his extracurricular activity, but sometimes he wished he had gotten something else rather than working with Alicia Raleigh. He rubbed his arm dramatically and asked to be reminded to never volunteer again. That got another laugh as Alicia sat down on the mat, facing the semi-circle of women of the Hope Found Shelter for Victims of Domestic Violence.  
  
Alicia could pick out the newcomers immediately. They still had that hangdog expression like none of this really mattered. *He* was going to show up at any moment and take her away and beat the hell out of her again for daring to leave. The ones that had passed that point seemed a little dazed to be there. It was as if they had woken up that morning to realize that they were living out their best dream and their old life was a nightmare. The ones ready to leave the shelter smiled a lot during these sessions. They might not know if they would remember their lessons if attacked again, but that wasn't the point really. The point was to make them see that they didn't have to be victims ever again. They would never believe they deserved it. They would try to fight back.  
  
"Women always have a major tactical advantage," Alicia continued. "Surprise. A man is not going to think that a smaller woman is going to be able to hurt him. But you know that you can. The knee. The eyes. People say the groin, but that's myth. It hurts them, but it might not disable. You take out someone's knee and they are not getting back up." She paused so that her next words would have greater impact.  
  
"And the men that used to abuse you certainly won't be expecting it either. They'll expect you to yell out self-empowering slogans and that you don't have to take this anymore. They won't expect you to snap their knee without breaking a sweat. You've all been hit before. Most people are afraid to fight because they are afraid to get hurt. You ladies are one up on them because you know what it's like to take a punch. You know you'll heal. You'll heal and when you do, they'll be the ones afraid of you."  
  
"Yeah!"  
  
"Right on!"  
  
"We talking serious payback!"  
  
The women were encouraged to express themselves. Alicia was proud of the ones that would get fired up enough to shout out during these sessions. They had come a long way from the frightened little mice that crawled into this place, too afraid to speak their mind lest they be beaten for "being smart". It was amazing what a difference three months could make.  
  
Alicia supposed that most of them thought she had been abused in the past and that was why she had started volunteering at the shelters in Seattle, teaching the women there self defense. They knew that she was married to a great guy now, but they figured that there must have been something awful in her past. Technically there was, but it wasn't abusive the way they thought of abuse. In any case, what they assumed was way off base. Alicia had started teaching when she met a woman that had finally been willing to fight back.  
  
Tuesday mornings had always been her personal time. She had been taking them off for years so that she could get away from the kids and the house and even Zack. She needed time to herself and Tuesdays were the perfect time to do it. She supposed it was a lot like when she was at Manticore and would slip away sometimes at night and climb their tree and just watch the moon and the stars and not think about missions or training or the others. She would just be Alicia then, nothing more and nothing less.  
  
About ten years ago, Alicia was at one of her favorite Tuesday morning places. It was a small café that served really good teas and pastries. Alicia would come in and read while enjoying a cup of tea. One of the waitresses there was a young woman that was always showing up with fresh bruises. Sometimes it would be just on her arms or she would walk with a slight limp. Alicia knew what bruises looked like when fingers caused them and she knew from painful experience that was exactly how one walked after taking a good shot to the kidneys. Sometimes the girl would be fine for several weeks in a row and she would be all smiles and sunshine. Then the clouds would roll back in and the rounds of bruising and limping would start up again.  
  
Then one Tuesday, Alicia noticed that the girl had come in with a rather spectacular black eye. Alicia expected that the cycle would be the same, but this time it was actually different. As the bruise faded to green to yellow and then finally gone, she wasn't all sunshine and smiles again. She seemed more watchful and worried, and she wasn't being re-injured again either.  
  
A few weeks later, Alicia found out why. A man came storming into the café, screaming and hurling papers at the young waitress. Alicia caught a glimpse at the header on one of the papers. Dissolution of Marriage. She had gotten the nerve up to file for divorce. He was quite obviously unhappy with the turn of events. The manager, a small nervous man himself, told the soon to be ex that he had to leave. He yelled back that he wasn't leaving without her or else. She cowered for a moment at the "or else" but then straightened her shoulders and yelled at him to go to hell.  
  
He seemed surprised for a moment and that gave her the courage to continue. She yelled at him to get out. She hated him. She was never going back to him. He better get used to that. She was getting a divorce and never wanted to see him again. Alicia supposed he got tired of her audacity and drew back one heavy hand to slap her. A hand suddenly gripped his wrist, not letting him go.  
  
"I believe," Alicia said calmly as if they were discussing the weather, "that the lady asked you to leave." She knew she shouldn't get involved. It wasn't her business. But the girl was trying. She should get some points for trying.  
  
The man glanced down at the petite blonde gripping him. "Stay out of this, bitch, or you'll be getting some too," he spat at her. He tried to jerk away, but the gentle clamp on his wrist turned to iron, grinding the bones together.  
  
He gasped at the sudden pain. "Last chance," she said with a little mocking smile, showing every bit of her confidence that he would be better off to back down at her command.  
  
He swung around, his meaty fist aiming directly for her face. She wouldn't be so high and mighty when her nose was spouting blood. Alicia heard the little waitress scream, but it was all over in three seconds. Alicia sidestepped as she simultaneously spun under his extended arm, causing it to twist painfully. His momentum only served to get him off balance and bent forward. Alicia drove her leg brutally into his mid-section, knocking the wind out of him. She drew back rapidly, the second kick going square into his face. Alicia let go of him and he crumbled to the ground, unconscious.  
  
Alicia was a little embarrassed by the incredulous stares that she was getting. The place was far from crowded, but the other server and the manager were gaping at her like she was inhuman. Well, she was, but she didn't want to draw attention to that fact. Staying in the background and not being the center of attention was a very deeply ingrained habit and a protection as well. Helping wasn't the wisest of ideas but Alicia just didn't want to see the girl get beat up when she was actually making a stand.  
  
Alicia smiled at the waitress. "Sorry to interrupt," she said, "but I needed to get my check. I have a few errands to run before I get the kids from school."  
  
From that innocent start, Alicia had found something that she still enjoyed and found to be challenging. A few weeks later, Alicia went back to the café and the waitress had come up and sat down with her. She introduced herself as Trudy and told Alicia how she had left her abusive husband and went to Hope Found and how it had changed her life. She had been amazed that a woman could really get a man down, just like on TV. Would Alicia be willing to teach other women at Hope Found how to do what she had done to Trudy's ex?  
  
It started out at HF and then went to other shelters. Alicia had taught hand to hand before to norms back at Manticore. There were lots of things that women could do that didn't require super strength. The shelter directors were told that she had been in the military and learned all of this there. They were just happy to have a woman coming in for free and teaching these women. The women at the shelter didn't trust male instructors and a woman with this kind of knowledge and self-confidence was hard to find. Alicia had gone from teaching self-defense to a de- victimization program where they were taught to stop thinking of themselves as victims, making them lose that self-image. And it was helping. Several women had come back and reported using what they had learned. Mostly it was how they weren't afraid to walk through a parking garage anymore. They were confident in themselves. One beaming woman told about how her ex came after her and he slapped her. That was it. She went off on him and two seconds later he was one the ground, begging for mercy.  
  
It had been over ten years and Alicia found herself giving the same lectures over and over but they were always unique in a way, tailored to the group she was currently teaching. She sat on the floor and continued her lecture to them. "The best thing to do is to never get into a conflict. If you feel confident in who you are and what you can do, then there's a better chance that a conflict won't occur at all."  
  
"Alicia?" Debbie, one of the other counselors, poked her head in the room. She continued when she saw that she had Alicia's attention. "Daniel's on the phone. He said it's very important." She held out a cordless phone.  
  
Alicia jumped up and grabbed the phone. "Honey, what's wrong?" she asked in greeting, hoping that nothing was wrong with Tanya or the baby.  
  
The other women in the group saw their cheerful confident instructor turn a sickly greenish-white as she listened. "Oh, God," she whispered, taking a step back as her knees threatened to buckle.  
  
"Alicia?" Debbie asked, thinking that she was about to throw up or faint. Alicia's eyes met hers for a moment and Debbie began backing off. The last time she had seen that kind of expression on a human face, it was when her ex-husband was strangling her after he found out about the restraining order. There was absolutely no mercy in those ice blue eyes that had always been warm and friendly at the shelter. She would have sworn the temperature dropped ten degrees. Debbie didn't get an answer. Alicia's fingers opened, releasing the phone. She was out the front door before it could hit the ground  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Mr. Hamilton, I must say I am quite impressed. This kind of vision in a man of your age is quite amazing. I am expecting exceptional things of you in the future, you know."  
  
Jon grinned at the head of a major English bank. "Mr. Dent, I can assure you that I am expecting exceptional things of me as well."  
  
The dozen other suits in the room laughed. They were investors looking into the resort and the one that was in the process of being built. One of the bankers that were financing the construction of the new resort had been talking to him about the possibility of a third once the new one was up and profitable and he had gathered together some people that might be interested. There was a defunct place in Colorado and Jonathan Hamilton's genius at these places might be what was needed to bring it back. A lot of money could be made and they were all very interested in seeing what this young man was capable of doing.  
  
"I am surprised you are willing to leave here," Mr. Sheron said, gesturing about to indicate the casual luxury of the resort. Sheron represented a Canadian investment firm and he was now thinking that since nothing was in concrete about Colorado, it would be very possible to encourage the resort location to be in Canada.  
  
Jon smiled. "As nice as it is here, there's something waiting for me back in the States that I have had my eye on for a long time and will be worth the move."  
  
Sheron raised an eyebrow. "Something? At your age, it should be a someone."  
  
The other men laughed gently and Jon pretended to be embarrassed. "I have been trying to get the lady to marry me since I was sixteen," he said. His grin widened. "Negotiations have just about concluded on that contract and she's now waiting for me to get back so we can finally make it formal and probably get married this summer before the new resort officially opens." All of them men could respect a romantic notion combined with good business sense.  
  
"Now, gentlemen," Jon said, standing, "I would appreciate it if you would all be my guests for dinner tonight. My head chef turned the restaurant here from a place where you could get a merely extraordinary meal into an gourmet's paradise."  
  
The other men began to stand, quite pleased that Dent had convinced them to show up. This kid knew exactly what his priorities were and how to run a resort of this nature. There were still quite a few details to be looked over, but not one doubted that the place in Colorado would be a stunning success in a few years and not only would it give them a good return on their investments, but also a place where they could take their girlfriends and mistresses and get treated in style.  
  
The conference phone beeped from the side table where it had been put out of the way for a reason and a receptionist's voice came over the intercom. "Mr. Hamilton, there's an important call for you. He said it's important."  
  
Jon flushed slightly. "Charlotte," he said through gritted teeth, walking over to the phone so he could speak quietly. "I gave very explicit instructions. Was it not clear when I said absolutely no interruptions?" This was embarrassing. If these guys didn't think he could control his staff here, how was he going to be able to handle three staffs on two continents?  
  
"Yes, sir," she squeaked, "but it's from America and he said it was an emergency."  
  
Jon barely heard her. "Tell whoever it is that I'll call back."  
  
She clicked off and then came back on a few seconds later, sounding exasperated. "Mr. Hamilton, he wanted me to give you a message and said he would hold for two minutes."  
  
Jon almost groaned. Why was it when things went perfect, they had to go to hell over the tiniest little thing? The investors were looking at him curiously now on how he was going to handle the situation. "And the message is?" he asked sharply.  
  
"Sir...these were his exact words and he insisted I give this to you exact," she stumbled out and then took a breath. "He said, 'Jon, it's Daniel, pick up now'." She winced on the other side. Her boss was a very nice man usually, but he did not like anyone to shorten his name and would correct anyone, no matter who they were, and ask that he be called by his given name.  
  
The investors were expecting a scathing retort and then an escort to dinner among sighs of annoyance that it could be so hard to get good help. They weren't expecting him to hit the line button, cutting off the receptionist and picking up the blinking hold light. He didn't even waste the time to take it off of speaker.  
  
"Daniel?"  
  
"Jon..."  
  
"Where's Heather?" Jon interrupted before Daniel could say another word.  
  
"We're at St. Luke's," Daniel answered quickly. "Aunt Jhondie's hospital. Heather and Cole were brought in a few minutes ago. They...they, uh..."  
  
Jon wasn't aware that his skin color was now the same as the snow outside. "WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?" he yelled into the phone.  
  
"She was shot," Daniel said bluntly. Jon grabbed the wall, for a moment thinking he was going to be sick. "Jhondie said she wasn't critical, but she was taken up to surgery a few minutes ago. We're not sure about Cole yet, but Heather's not going to die, and I wanted to let you know what was going on."  
  
"I'm on the next flight," Jon muttered, clicking the disconnect button. He dialed his secretary's extension. Thank God she hadn't taken the day off like she thought she was going to.  
  
"This is Ruth," she answered pleasantly.  
  
"Ruth, I'm going to the airport now," Jon said. "When I get there, call me and tell me what flight I'm on to New York City."  
  
"Oh," she said, surprised. Jonathan didn't just take off wildly. Ever. Even when he was dating that obnoxious model, he didn't just go running off with her. The only time he had ever come close to doing that was with his current girlfriend and that had only been once almost a year ago. "Well, okay. But don't you need to pack?"  
  
The question didn't surprise Jon in the slightest. Ruth probably could tell him how many pairs of socks he owned. She was getting a huge raise and bonus to move when he went to the new resort mostly because he didn't know how he could run a business without her. "That's what FedEx is for," Jon answered and without a word to any of the investors, walked out of the room. A few minutes later he was in the garage, spraying gravel as he tore out of the resort, heading for the airport. 


	5. Fields of Bounty

"Fields of Bounty," Rae-Lee greeted in her slow Texas drawl when she picked up the phone.  
  
"Liz Raleigh, please," the caller asked in a clipped Yankee accent.  
  
"Sure hon, and you are?"  
  
"Her brother Daniel. It's an emergency."  
  
Rae-Lee hit the hold button. Sure. Everything was an emergency to family. The cat ran away. The kids are fighting over who gets the last soda. Still, she dutifully hit Liz's extension. "Liz, if you're not under Brandt's desk, your brother Daniel is on the phone. Says it's important."  
  
Liz laughed at the teasing. "Brandt's in his own office, thank you," she replied. She had come a long way with fitting in with the others here. At first they had been annoyed Brandt was bringing in his obvious trophy girlfriend to be a bounty hunter, but it was his company, so there wasn't much that they could do. Of course they hadn't met Liz the way Brandt did.  
  
Liz had been in San Antonio doing a job for a bank. The break in went perfectly as planned. Liz went in the next morning and dutifully returned the money to the bank, giving the gathered executives and quick run down on their weak links and promised to provide a full report later. Yawn. This was getting so boring. She had only been doing it for three months and she was already bored out of her mind. Breaking into places wasn't nearly as much fun without Cameron and Janna. It was an honest living, she knew, but it was still boring as hell. But hey, it was still honest. She was going nuts.  
  
Liz headed downstairs to get a check for services rendered. Then she was to go back to the hotel, write the report and then fly back to Seattle the next day. The check would go to Dad's bookkeeper and then it would be off to plan another security test at yet another bank somewhere in the country. Boring, boring, boring. She stepped off of the final riser and her life changed in an instant. She had been so busy mentally bemoaning how bored she was, she didn't have the slightest bit of forewarning when a guy grabbed her from behind.  
  
"Everyone down now or the bitch is dead!" he shouted, firing a single round into the air. Liz felt the gun barrel against her head and another guy began demanding money from the frightened tellers.  
  
"Don't you dare put a dye-pack in there," partner growled at a teller. "He's gonna shoot her dead if you do." The threat was uttered low, but Liz heard it well enough. She figured they were planning on adding kidnapping to their list of charges. Oh well, she thought glumly. At least this was slightly above boring.  
  
Liz waited right until the guy holding her went to drag her out of the bank. He was so excited that his mind was wide open and she knew every move he was about to make. He started to try and drag her out and then all of a sudden she went from a quiet, frightened victim to hellcat in a flash. The guy was disarmed, on the floor howling in pain in half a heartbeat. His partner got distracted by the ruckus and forgot to watch his back. One of the other customers put him on the ground, unconscious, before he truly realized how bad things had just gotten.  
  
The customer who attacked the other would-be robber pulled out a pair of handcuffs and cuffed his man. Then he pulled out of his jacket pocket a hollow metal rectangle with a screen on one side. He jammed the man's thumb in there and noted what came up. A frown crossed his features and then he went to Liz.  
  
"Mind if I ID him?" he drawled, eyeing Liz appreciatively.  
  
"Whatever thrills you," Liz responded; trying to sound flippant but really feeling a little, well, squirmy under the warm gaze of his dark eyes. She wasn't trying to pry but it was impossible to not notice his mental tone at the thought of thrilling her. Nothing perverse, just, well, enough to make her squirm.  
  
He slid the ID checker onto her crook's thumb and then smiled at the result. "According to this guy's thumb here," he said in that same lazy drawl, "we got ourselves a bail skipper here. Now you can give him to the cops or we can take him to Dallas and spilt the bounty. That's five grand for each of us."  
  
Liz blinked. This was unexpected. But it was a very sincere offer. It only took a peep into his mind to see that. Five grand. He was impressed with it. Yawn. But he was tall with dark hair pulled back in a shoulder length ponytail and a sexy little Fu-Manchu. His sensual mouth was smiling, lighting up those dark eyes. Her cowboy here practically screamed Texas in his denim jeans and leather boots. She was willing to bet his Stetson was in the truck. Boring? Most assuredly not.  
  
Liz's flight wasn't until the next afternoon anyways. She could do what she should do and go back to her hotel and get that report written so that she wouldn't have to do it when she got home and the bank would be pleased with such a prompt response. Or...she could do exactly what she ended up doing. It was the shortest six-hour trip in her life as she rode shotgun, getting to know Brandt Fields. The attempted bank-robber sat in the modified backseat of Brandt's SUV, attached to the restraints installed into the frame of the vehicle itself. He rolled his eyes and muttered a lot, but Liz tuned that out and just enjoyed getting to know Brandt.  
  
He was 32, divorced, with a son, Chris who was 13. He was on good terms with the ex, although that took a few years to come by after the divorce, and it was quite obvious that he loved his son. Grew up in Texas, mother passed last year, but Dad was alive and still kickin'. Been a bounty hunter for about ten years now and had his own company with two guys working for him and a receptionist that also provided back up when needed. Liz loved hearing him talk with his rich accent and colorful expressions.  
  
She told him about herself. Parts, at least. She was from Seattle, but had been living in Europe for a few years and just moved back to the States. Had two brothers, one being her twin, and an older sister. She worked for her father's company, testing bank security. It wasn't the exciting job like one might think. Had gotten way too easy. The guy in the back seat groaned out loud when she told Brandt how much she would have gotten away with the night before had she not been there just as a test. Liz and Brandt both smirked at his distress. They talked for hours and enjoyed some subtle flirtation. Well, it wasn't all that subtle. The guy in the back finally told them to get a room for an hour. He would wait in the car.  
  
The trip was over way too soon for Liz's liking. They turned in their skipper and that should have been it. When they left San Antonio, Brandt promised that he would drive her back just as soon as they cashed in and split the bounty. He looked a little crestfallen when he said to hop back in the truck since a deal was a deal. Before she could think, Liz heard herself blurt out that maybe they should rest for a while and get something to eat before heading back. She didn't need to be back until the next afternoon, so it wasn't like she was really in a hurry.  
  
So it started with a late lunch. Brandt was one of those men who could appreciate seeing a woman enjoying a meal and didn't peck at it, terrified of gaining three ounces or looking bad in front of a man. Liz was herself and if he didn't like it, piss on him them. He had to admit, he certainly liked what he saw. Before the meal was over, Liz mentioned that she had never been to Dallas before. Brandt jumped on that and offered to show her some of the sites. It was late in the afternoon, but there was still a little time.  
  
They went over to the Dallas Arboretum & Botanical Gardens and wandered around there for a while as dusk began to settle in. It was due to close soon and most of the people were gone. Liz thought the day was too good to be true. Nothing had ever made her expect a day could start so blah and end up so incredible. And she thought she must have fallen into a dream when they were behind a column on the outside of a small building off to the side when Brandt leaned over and gave her the softest, sweetest kiss she could have ever imagined in her life. They both seemed startled by it, but then they smiled at each other and when they started walking again, her hand was in his.  
  
They didn't get back to San Antonio until well after two in the morning. They had gone to Billy Bob's Texas Nightclub over in Ft. Worth and enjoyed some of the local "culture" there, although Liz felt a little weird being the only one not in boots. It was still fun though and both of them were slow to want to leave. Brandt barely did the speed limit the last hour of the trip, trying to prolong their time together.  
  
And the trip had shocked the hell out of Liz in more than one way. Brandt asked her how she seemed to know when the guy at the bank was about to make a move and leave with her. It was his most vulnerable moment and she knew. Liz joked that she was telepathic. Brandt had laughed but then he got quiet. Telepathy? Ha ha, right out of science fiction. Didn't exist. Except at the bar these two guys had been glaring at each other and making threatening gestures. Liz's back was to them. She had casually stood and moved and then all of a sudden the one guy jumped the other one and landed where Liz had been sitting. That was when they had left Billy Bob's.  
  
And then at the Gardens, they had gotten lost. The place was huge and it was easy to get lost when you hadn't been there in a long time. Liz had been looking amused and then without hesitation walked down a couple of paths that they hadn't gone down before and went right to a gardener to ask for directions. Brandt had given Liz a long look in the car after thinking about the day.  
  
"You're not really joking are you?"  
  
Liz jumped in her seat. She tried to respect people's privacy and didn't pry when they were thinking. She suddenly wished she had listening in on him. She opened her mouth to deny it and was stunned to hear her voice saying "Ummm...actually, not really."  
  
"What I am thinking right now?"  
  
Liz was flustered. "I'm not peeking right now," she sputtered. "That's rude to listen in." She paused. "Betty Lou Brenner? There really are girls with that name?"  
  
Brandt almost went off of the road. It had been fifteen years, but if Betty Lou's brothers found out even now that he had sex with her behind their barn, they would still hunt him down. It was one of those things that he told his wife, but not another living soul. If she knew that...she was really serious. He asked her about it, and to Liz's amazement, it wasn't weird. It was actually very cool to be able to tell someone. She didn't tell him the entire truth, but said that she thought it was because she was a twin and they were so close that mental abilities developed. Or she was just weird. Who knew? Later Liz realized that the little things she had done to make him wonder were similar to things she had done in front of lots of other people, including close friends. It was just none of them had ever been really watching her before.  
  
It made for a fascinating end to the trip, which made it go by way too fast. He walked her up to the door of her hotel room and then kissed her good night. Of all of the kisses that Liz had ever had in her life, nothing had prepared her for the intensity of what this kiss did to her.  
  
All good sense and practicality went right out the window right then and there. One thing led to the next and Liz ended up waking up in Brandt's arms. To put it mildly, she freaked out. Brandt was amused at her protests that this wasn't like her at all to just sleep with someone. He already knew that and no telepathy had been required.  
  
Liz was more upset that she shouldn't have done it rather than she wished she hadn't. You don't fall for someone in a day. It's impossible. Especially when you lived in Seattle and he lived in Texas. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair. She had to go home. He was so wonderful, but she had to go home.  
  
Brandt stopped her dead with a single question. "Why?" Her expression was priceless. "If you don't like what you're doing there, then why go back?" he pressed. "Bet you'd make a great bounty hunter."  
  
Liz had never even considered that. She didn't have a real reason to go back except for the fact her parents lived there. It wasn't like she was going to have to uproot kids. She could just go. Hell, she was living with the parents so she didn't even have to move an apartment. But a major lifestyle change based on one day and one night? She had done some crazy things before but they had always been well planned and thought out. Liz made her flight that night, promising Brandt she would think about it. And she did think about it. It took all of five minutes. The minute the plane took off, she started crying, regretting leaving already as it felt like her heart was breaking.  
  
Talking to the parents was going to be the scary part. Liz told them what happened at the bank and the job offer. They didn't really need all the details, right? Dad didn't like it at all. What if someone found out about her past? Turning her in would net a fortune in rewards. He listed every single reason why this would be the absolute worst thing that she could possibly do. Mom didn't say a thing until Dad finally wound down.  
  
Then her mother calmly set down her cup of tea and said "You won't be the first young woman to take a crazy chance over a young man." She smiled at her husband. "She's obviously our child, isn't she?"  
  
Liz's jaw flapped. "Did you have someone watching me?" she demanded angrily.  
  
Mom sipped her tea, completely nonplussed. "I may not be the telepath in the family," she said calmly, "but you are my daughter. I do not need ESP to know what is going on in your head, my darling youngest child." Liz tried to deny it, but then confessed about Brandt, leaving out the fact that they slept together. From the looks her parents gave her, it was like they had a good suspicion anyways.  
  
Liz ended up moving to Texas and going to work for Brandt. At first the others at Brandt's company saw her as something to pretty up the place. Rae-Lee had seen the young woman come in, casually dressed, but still the jeans were designer and she had seen the bag that Liz was carrying in some fancy catalogue. It cost around a thousand dollars. They all predicated that Liz would last less than a month before Brandt got tired of her and kicked her out. The consensus was that Brandt had hit his mid-life crisis early.  
  
Liz knew what they thought of her. Brandt had kept to his promise and didn't tell anyone about the telepathy. She was a curiosity enough; she didn't want to be a freak. Besides, even without telepathy she could tell what they thought. It wasn't easy to deal with the snide comments about her messing up her hair, but she dealt with it, feeling proud of her new maturity that let her blow such comments off. They would adjust eventually and she was enjoying being with Brandt too much to be annoyed with his employees. A few weeks passed and then it happened. The team got major info on a bail skipper that he was at a specific address and would be there all night. They made plans to go in that night to get him.  
  
Despite what he had seen at the bank, Brandt had Liz watch the back. She had just finished the state's training course and it would be the first time she went out with the team. And the guy at the bank was slim and not very big. This skipper was a brute and had a history of violence, especially towards women. He even had Rae-Lee behind the three men going in the front just in case. Brandt wasn't worried about Liz being by herself in the back since the backyard adjoined a field with a lot of high grass and weeds. Brandt was confident that the skipper would hit that before hitting Liz.  
  
Liz knew why he was really doing it, but she didn't want to make a scene in front of the others. He didn't realize how well she could protect herself. Instead, she made a teasing comment to Brandt that she better not get bored out there. Brandt knew what she meant and laughed it off. The others thought it was just a whiny-brat statement. On their way into position, Rae-Lee handed Liz a Cosmo and told her it was so she wouldn't get bored while the real bounty hunters worked.  
  
Then it happened. The skipper's girlfriend pulled a gun, letting him have time to get away while they subdued her. He headed out back and made a beeline for the field. Brandt's heart nearly stopped when he heard Liz say into the ear-microphone that she was giving chase. Even the others were worried. She was obviously a spoiled brat, but that didn't mean they wanted her to get beat up or killed. They all followed and then the sound of a fight coming over the mic made all of them feel ill. Nothing could have prepared them for what they found.  
  
The guy was face down on the ground, neatly handcuffed and very much unconscious. Liz was sitting on the small of his back, flipping through the Cosmo, reading it with a penlight. She sighed dramatically and held up a page when they converged on where she was. "Look at this!" she said, sounding terribly distressed. "Neutrals are coming back in! Argh! I'm a shimmer. I just don't know how I am going to survive until next year." She didn't dare look at any of them in the face or else she would have laughed herself sick.  
  
After that, she was part of the crew. Her relationship with Brandt only increased. She met Marlene, his ex wife and actually found her to be rather nice. Marlene was a little surprised to see Brandt with such a younger woman, but had to admit that Liz was perfect for him. Chris, Brandt's son was going to be a heartbreaker and a half. He also began pestering his father to marry Liz after he went over to his dad's one day with two of his friends and found Liz bent over her Ferrari in tight denim shorts as she worked on the car. She was hot and not only owned his favorite car in the world, but did all of the mechanic work on it as well and told him about all of the upgrades she had done. The boy would have married her himself except he would have had to fight his two friends for the honor first. He couldn't have her; his dad was going to have to marry her. Liz would be the coolest stepmother in the world. She had driven in races over in Europe (Liz thought it best to not mention the underground racing she did in high school). She had racing trophies. And a stepson would have a much better chance at being allowed to drive her car than her boyfriend's son would.  
  
And at work things got better when they realized how well connected Liz was. Her sister was in the FBI. Twice she had provided some information that was needed. The others weren't sure what the deal was when Liz was on the phone with Heather, telling her that she was trying to be good and that's why she needed the info, but it worked, so why question it. And then once they needed to know if a skipper was at a certain house, but there was no way to do recon. If the guy got the slightest whiff of problems, he was going to be out the door. When Brandt presented the problem, they watched in amazement as Liz had called someone and spent twenty minutes begging and pleading. She didn't sound more than fifteen as she exaggerated her 'please'. Finally she booted up her laptop and casually entered a secure military site and had access to satellite photography in real time. Every jaw in the room was on the table as Liz thanked the person on the other end and then explained she had a thirty- minute pass for the site. With some intense zooms, the house was located and their skipper was seen in the backyard. Liz refused to explain whom she called and how it was done, but by that point, they didn't really care.  
  
The best part was that eventually, Brandt knew everything. About a month ago, Liz had woken up from a bad nightmare. She didn't have bad dreams very often, but when she did, they were monsters. Cameron...Southwood...gun shots...blood everywhere. Brandt was with her that night and asked her what she had been dreaming about. Without meaning to, she told him. Everything. She blurted out what they had been doing in Europe. It would have been best to stop there, but once she got started, she just couldn't stop. To say the least, Brandt was stunned. Liz's family was something out of a sci-fi movie and her life...it sounded like something straight out of Hollywood.  
  
The next day was more awkward than Liz was prepared for. Brandt made some weak excuses and left before they could go to work together like they usually did when they spent the night. He wasn't there when Liz got to the office. She didn't bother going to her desk. She went straight to the bathroom and cried for an hour. The other staff was confused as hell. The day before, those two were just as happy as could be. One of the guys tried to get her out of the bathroom, telling her he had to use it, but Liz got an unexpected help from Rae-Lee who kicked him in the shin and said he could go make a puddle on the floor for all she cared. He better leave Liz alone or he was going to have to deal with her. Nobody in their right mind wanted to deal with Rae-Lee.  
  
Brandt came in late that afternoon. He pulled Liz into the conference room and she immediately told him that she understood. It was way too much. She couldn't expect him to stay with her. She might not be able to in the same situation. It was totally understandable. He should, by rights, be turning her in. She would appreciate it if he didn't, but she'd quit working there and move back to Seattle and...and...  
  
Brandt didn't say anything. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black velvet box. He flicked it open and the glittering ring inside cut off her desperate words. "I've been thinking a lot too," he finally said. "And it hit me that I love you. I love the person that you are right now. So whatever made that person, I can deal with it. And I ain't letting you get away from me that easily." He grinned. "What do you say that we get married instead of breaking up?  
  
For a second, Liz thought she was going to pass out. She started crying instead and he pulled her close to him. "I thought I lost you," she sniffed.  
  
"You didn't lose me, baby," Brandt comforted her. "I didn't get lost. I just needed a minute to catch up." He reached behind him and yanked the door open, making the other three members of the team lose their balance and fall to the floor behind him and Liz.  
  
Liz started laughing. Her eyes met Brandt's and it didn't take the slightest bit of telepathy to read his mind. "After what you put me through today," she drawled, picking up a Texan accent, "Damn straight I'm going to marry you. You're losing your bachelor privileges permanently, mister."  
  
Brandt kissed her and the others cheered. So what if this was fast? When it's right, it's right. They set a wedding date for early May and Liz moved into Brandt's house. She didn't think anything could take her out of the clouds, but if Daniel was calling with an emergency, then it might be just the thing to put a pin in her balloon.  
  
"Hey Daniel," she greeted. "What's up?"  
  
It didn't take long for Daniel to outline the morning's events. For a second the world was gray and swimmy as Daniel concluded, "I called Mom and Dad first, but we need as many blood donors here as soon as possible."  
  
"I'm there," she whispered. "I'll call Cam and we'll be hitting the next flights to New York." Daniel thanked her for calling Cameron and they said their good byes.  
  
Liz felt like she was in a daze as she dialed Cameron's satellite phone. She was grateful that he and Emilie had decided to go after that Spanish treasure ship she had talked about back when they had all met. It took a little over three months, but they had found the thing in the Gulf of Mexico. A month later, Cameron came up from a dive with a small chest full of loose gemstones of varying sizes, but all were near-perfect quality. Two weeks later they found a large box that had been sealed in wax and pitch to make it waterproof. Inside was dozens of gold bars, but between some of the bars, there were sheets of paper. They were letters that were meant for the King of Spain. They had been put in the waterproof container for safekeeping, and by some miracle, had been preserved. Emilie was in ecstasy translating the long, richly detailed letters. Now Cameron and Emilie were determined they were going to be in the Gulf for as long as it took to excavate this site and find all of its secrets and riches.  
  
Cameron picked up on the first ring. "What's wrong?" he greeted. He didn't need to ask who was calling. Even separated, they still knew when the other was distressed. He had actually just picked up the phone to dial Liz when it rang in his hands.  
  
Brandt had just come into Liz's office, stopping cold at the tears running down his young fiancée's face. He listened in horror as she told Cameron what was going on. "Daniel said that Heather isn't too bad, but it's still not good," she got out. "But Cole...they just don't know."  
  
"The helicopter is due back in about an hour," Cam said, thinking about when it left and how long it was supposed to be gone. "You go on. I'll meet you in New York."  
  
Liz hung up, never so grateful in her life to have Brandt to go to. His arms wrapped around her and she realized that he was on his cell phone, getting a flight to New York for the both of them. She didn't have to say anything when he hung up. And she wasn't going to even think about saying that he should stay because they had a lot of work here. She needed him there with her. "We got to hurry if we want to make the next flight," he said as he hung up. Nothing else was needed as they left quickly to run home and get ready for the unknown. 


	6. Home

Daniel's last call was to home. Tanya answered it. Much to her parent's dismay, she had finally figured out that the caller ID would tell her who was calling. There went her parents' reason for not answering the phone that she didn't know if it was someone she was allowed to talk to or a stranger. Now she was checking and screening calls to see if she could get them or leave them for Mommy. Maybe they shouldn't have had a second child. One extremely precocious child was plenty. Daniel often wondered how his parents handled having four.  
  
"DADDY!" Tanya squealed into the phone. "I made Zachary pretty!" In the background he heard Cyra's sigh of disgust. God, he wanted to be there right now. He wanted to be with his wife and daughter and infant son and not in a trauma room waiting for the dying.  
  
"Tan, I need to talk to Mommy," Daniel said, trying to keep his voice steady. Unfortunately, Tanya was far too much her father's daughter.  
  
"Why are you sad?" she questioned with the perfect innocence of a child.  
  
"Because Aunt Heather and Uncle Cole are sick," he managed to answer.  
  
"Oh," she said. "Tell them not to spit out their medicine or they will get a spanking and not get better."  
  
"I will," he promised. "Now go get Mommy for me."  
  
Before Tanya could respond, the phone was yanked away and Cyra picked up. "You go clean your room right now, young lady," she ordered the little girl.  
  
"But Mommy!" Tanya protested.  
  
"GO!" Daniel could almost see her standing in the family room, her finger pointing, dark eyes snapping.  
  
Cyra let out a small groan. "I swear," she said, "If our son grows up to be gay, it's all your daughter's fault. I go into the kitchen for five minutes, just five minutes, and she's already got him in one of her doll dresses *again*. But then this time she decides he's not pretty enough. She gets out that glitter makeup stuff that Liz sent to her and now the poor baby is covered in it. I know I should be glad she doesn't hate her brother and trying to smother him, but this is getting ridiculous." She paused to take a breath. "So what's up with you?"  
  
Daniel couldn't say anything for a few seconds. He didn't care that Tanya was dressing up her little brother despite the number of times that she had been told that was a major no-no. Home was always a little crazy with the kids, but right then he wished he could be there more than anything.  
  
"Daniel, what's wrong?" Cyra questioned. She knew her husband. It wasn't unusual for him to call during the day, but even when he was going to have to tell her that he was tearing off to some war-torn country somewhere in the world and wasn't sure when he would be back, she had never gotten this kind of vibe off of him.  
  
"I'm...I'm at St. Luke's," he finally said, desperately trying to keep control. He had been okay until faced with the natural sweetness and compassion of his wife. "Heather and Cole were brought in a little bit ago. They...both of them had been shot."  
  
"Oh dear God in Heaven," Cyra gasped out. "What happened? Are they okay?" She thought for a second. "And what are they doing in New York?"  
  
"I don't know why they were here," Daniel answered honestly. "Nobody knew. Heather had already been taken up to surgery when I got here. But, uh, Cole's not doing so well. Xander's already called Janice."  
  
"Oh no," Cyra said softly. "They're going to be okay, right? I mean, Jhondie's got them, so they should be good." Zachary had to be delivered by an emergency c-section and most surgeons wouldn't have been able to get him out in time before the cord around his neck would have caused brain damage. Jhondie had done the surgery herself in the E.R. rather than waiting for one of the OB surgeons and an OR, flying through the surgery in record speed and getting him out. Testing later had shown absolutely no indication of any damage at all.  
  
"Heather, I think so," Daniel replied. "I don't think she was hurt too bad. Jhondie's got Cole in surgery right now. If Xander and I hadn't been able to get here and give blood...he wouldn't have made it that far." Cyra was almost crying at hearing the sheer pain in her husband's voice.  
  
"I'm going to call Carmella and then I'll be there," Cyra promised. Carmella was a teenager that lived down the street. The sixteen year old was the oldest of the seven children her Italian parents had created, so she could handle any age child. And she never said no to babysitting, no matter the time of day or night. She was home schooled, so if it was noon or midnight, she was ready. She had explained that if she were home, then she would be expected to watch kids for free. If she went to the Raleigh's then she not only got paid to watch kids, but she also got to watch what she wanted to on TV.  
  
"Cyra, you might not want to," Daniel warned. "Things had to be said in the ER about Cole and blood and a lot of people know now. If the media gets wind, and I don't see how they won't, it's going to be a circus."  
  
Cyra closed her eyes. She had been waiting for this in one way or another. Daniel's article used fake names and places for everyone, and other media outlets had been desperate to find just one of his sources. They had resorted to some dirty tricks, including that Congressional hearing where one of them had managed to plant a bug at Daniel's table. Nothing had succeeded. Cyra knew how important publishing this article had been to Daniel, but she had wished he didn't have to. She wanted her kids to grow up normal, not as freak attractions. But had Daniel not written it and another genetics program started, her kids would have been the first targets to use.  
  
"I'll see you in a few," Cyra repeated.  
  
"Love you, baby."  
  
"Love you too."  
  
Daniel hung up his phone and let Carolyn disconnect him from the blood drawing equipment. She had quite wisely not tried to reprimand either of them for using cell phones in a hospital. Xander had already removed the needle from his arm and was pacing as he talked on his cell phone, making the girl even more nervous. Someone is scrubs came in and grabbed the bags of blood, but he was in far too much of a hurry to give them an update. Xander snapped off his phone and sat back down. Now what?  
  
Justin finally came back in the room. "Okay," he announced. "Heather is already in surgery and from what I heard, she's not in life-threatening danger. She's got Dr. Ramirez working on her, and next to Jhondie, he's the best surgeon in this place. They were saying that she was awake and talking before they took her up, so that's a good sign." His voice lowered. "And she was also kinetically kicking the crap out of anyone trying to give Cole blood, so she's in good shape."  
  
"Good for her," Xander growled, ignoring the black look Daniel shot him. "I want to know who the a$$hole was that wanted to give up on Cole."  
  
Justin thought for a second. "Probably Ricker. But you can't kill him because Jhondie still needs him." Not really, but if she tried running the E.R and handling her other duties, he wasn't ever going to see her outside this hospital again.  
  
"I can wait," Xander snapped. The poor nurse went white and scrambled out of the room.  
  
"Xander," Justin said calmly, in what Daniel recognized as his "interview voice", "What you are going to do is calm down and go into the surgical waiting room and do exactly that. Wait. Ricker's not Jhondie. He's not a surgeon and he sure as hell doesn't understand X-6 physiology. Now has everyone been called?"  
  
"Yeah," Daniel answered. "Mom and Dad will be on the next flight out. Liz and Cam probably won't be too far behind." He looked at Xander. "Were you able to get a hold of Cray?"  
  
Xander nodded. "He said he would be here on the next flight." Cray had recently received a stunning promotion and they weren't sure if he would be able to get away even for an emergency like this. None of them had ever expected to be put into a major command position. Anything they ever did would have to be covert. Xander had been able to excel, but then again, the CIA was mostly covert ops. Cray had gone into the Navy's sub program and eventually become an XO on a sub. He never tried to go further because he knew that if he went up for a command three times and didn't get it, he would be out of the program all together. His commander knew the full situation and made sure the right people would support the nomination. Four months ago, Cray received orders to take over his own sub. He hadn't been convinced that it was a brilliantly done practical joke by one of his brothers until he actually took the sub out for the first time and everyone was calling him captain. But despite the responsibility, he wasn't going to forget his roots and when an X-6 emergency called, he was going to answer it.  
  
"What about Tynell?" Justin asked. Daniel was too concerned about his sister to be an investigator right then, but Justin couldn't help but wonder what Heather and Cole were doing together in New York City.  
  
"Ty didn't answer," Xander supplied. "Lon said he put in an emergency notice to him to call." He was pacing again. "Have you heard anything from Jhondie yet?"  
  
Not likely we're going to hear anything for hours, Justin thought. He wasn't a doctor by any means, but after being married to one for so long and spending time with them, you got a feeling for how bad a situation really was and not just what the staff was saying. But he said, "Just that Cole's in surgery. They'll call into surgical waiting with updates."  
  
Justin led the two men into the waiting room. Time had a curious habit of slowing once someone walked through those doors. It was some kind of anomaly that outside time moved at a regular speed, but in there minutes suddenly spun themselves out into hours. The volunteer at the desk occasionally cast them a sympathetic smile, but it wasn't a comfort. There was another family in the room, discussing their family member's minor operation that he was having. Xander's pacing was making them nervous as they huddled together.  
  
After some time, a woman in a sharp business suit entered, looking around and smiling when she spotted Justin. He smiled warmly back at her. "Good morning, Erica," he greeted when she approached. She was one of the hospital's family liaisons and worked with families and any legal, psych, or media. With the situation at hand, she was glad that she knew one of the people involved, especially considering that he was married to the chief of staff. From what she had heard from the rumors flying around, Dr. Carter seemed to know these people as well. Maybe Justin was their liaison to the "normal" world.  
  
"Justin," she greeted. "I hate to bother you, but there are some, ah, issues."  
  
"I figured there would be." They had Xander and Daniel's attention now. Xander stopped pacing to sit down. Another family had come in but his frequent glares had them curled up in the far corner away from the small group.  
  
"First," she explained, "The police are here wanting to know more information. I told them that both of the victims are in surgery now, so they are going to have to wait until their doctors say they are well enough to be questioned."  
  
"Did they say what happened?" Daniel asked quickly.  
  
"No," she replied, her nose wrinkling to show annoyance at the police. "It's an official investigation at the moment."  
  
"I'll have Lon talk to them," Xander said. Erica smiled, not knowing who Lon was or how that would help, but the gentleman seemed to know what he was talking about.  
  
"The other thing is press," she continued in a lower voice. "I am aware that the situation is a bit, ah, unusual. I'm not sure who has said what or what was overheard perhaps, but the vultures are already circling." She blushed. "No offense." Justin almost laughed. His caliber of journalism was much higher than the majority of publications out there.  
  
"Keep them out of here," Daniel snapped before Xander could say a word. He knew that Xander's method of dealing with a microphone in his face was going to be far more brutal and direct than 'no comment'. And with the way Daniel was feeling, he might just follow his uncle's lead.  
  
"Actually, hospital policy is that three reporters are allowed in for extraordinary circumstances," Justin said. "They aren't allowed in rooms unless invited by the family and they can only stay in the common areas, not say, in the back of the emergency room with the patients." He reached into his suit coat's inner pocket and pulled out his press credentials. "Too bad Logan isn't here or else we would have all three spots taken." Daniel's relief was evident. He hadn't thought about the fact that him and Justin qualified as press.  
  
"So where does that mean the third one is going to be?" Xander demanded.  
  
"Mike will stay back," Daniel said to him. He turned to Erica. "Tell Mike DuChant of the Post that he's the third and make sure he talks to Justin first." She nodded; glad to hear that they knew whom they wanted. The others would whine and complain, but they wouldn't get in. And anyone that had a sudden illness requiring them to go to the ER would soon wish they had gone to another hospital. One good colonoscopy would change his views on the world forever.  
  
Erica left and made sure they were left alone. Xander had to leave for a few minutes when the cleaner team arrived to take care of the trauma room. He gave them their instructions and was back upstairs to wait once more. Justin took a minute to step out and talk to Mike. He was told that if he would be a good boy and stay in the cafeteria, he was going to get to be part of the story of a lifetime. Mike was the kind of guy that would beat up his own mother for a hot story, but he knew when to be patient. For a story like this, he would endure the lousy coffee forever if need be. 


	7. The Messenger

A little less than two hours after being called, Lon, Shawna and Janice came into the waiting room, all of them full of a thousand questions, none of which had answers yet. Trying to deal with Janice was the hardest part for Xander. He had seen her handle delicate situations before. She had coolness that never rattled. Seeing her on the verge of hysterics was one of the most unnerving things he had ever seen in his life.  
  
All three of them were inundating him with questions. What happened? Who shot Cole? How many times? Where? What did Jhondie say? Why was he in New York? Was it an accident? When was he going to get out?  
  
"We don't know shit!" Xander finally blurted. He paused to take a breath, continuing in a much more controlled tone. "They were brought in, that's what we know. Lon, Shawna, you're going to need to donate blood. After that, Lon, you're going to flash your badge at the cops and find out if they know anything. An FBI agent was involved; you have jurisdiction."  
  
"If the shooter is alive?" Lon asked in a low voice. He was all for law and order and the like, but roots ran deep when family was involved.  
  
Xander's eyes met his. "Get whatever useful information out of him that you can. And if there's an accident later, then that's just too bad, isn't it?" Both Shawna and Janice heard him, but neither even considered trying to countermand him. Whoever dared to touch not just one, but two of their own was going to pay dearly.  
  
"Excuse me?" a kind voice broke in. They all turned to the volunteer who had come up. She was an older lady, maybe somewhere in her late sixties, and didn't seem to be fazed in the slightest with any of them. "Are one of you Dr. Shawna Baker?"  
  
Shawna blinked. "I'm Shawna Baker," she said hesitantly. She was a medic, yes, but that was far from being an M.D.  
  
"Dr. Carter left word that you would be coming here and asked that you scrub in right away. She also said that I was to send for a nurse when another donor arrived to get blood drawn." She seemed slightly confused at the second instruction. Blood donors were sent over to the phlebotomists to get blood drawn. It wasn't done in the waiting room. That was simply improper.  
  
"That would be me," Lon supplied.  
  
The volunteer smiled. "Wonderful. Dr. Baker, if you'll please come with me, I'll show you to the OR. And I'll be back with a nurse in just a few minutes."  
  
Shawna allowed herself to be led through the double doors. A few minutes later a nurse arrived back in the waiting room and set up the blood draw on Lon. Jhondie must have said something back there because the nurse didn't even suggest that Lon leave the room. One woman in one of the other families had to leave the room at the sight of the dark red fluid winding through the tube, but nobody was quite willing to ask him to leave.  
  
Xander finally sat down with Janice, his arm around her shoulders. Since she and Cole had gotten married, outside of work she was his sister in law and they had become close. Anyone else seeing her would think that she was calming down from her hysterical questioning earlier, but he knew better. She was trembling violently, her skin clammy and pale.  
  
"He's going to make it," Xander said to her. "He's strong. Trust me, it takes a lot more than a few measly gunshots to stop one of us."  
  
She didn't look at him, her gaze locked onto the dark gray double doors in front of them. "Don't," she snapped, her voice harsh with unreleased sobs. "I know when you're lying. We all wouldn't be here if you didn't think it was that bad. Lon wouldn't be giving blood and a cleaner team wouldn't be downstairs."  
  
Xander cursed the fact that she had much of the same training that he had. "We were made to heal from injuries that would be mortal one someone else. And I know Jhondie's a good surgeon. She..." his words trailed off.  
  
"She what?" Janice questioned. Xander didn't answer. "What did she do?" The slightest note of hysteria crept into the demand.  
  
"She stabilized him for surgery," Daniel supplied. "I was in the ER too. Everyone was flying around, but she was right there with him the whole way. She's the best trauma surgeon on the East Coast. And she's not going to let him die on her."  
  
She might not have the choice, Janice thought as she sat there, fear casting a black net around everything. God, what if he died? She had cursed herself a thousand times in the last two hours for not finding out what was going on with him. They both understood in their careers that there were things that they simply couldn't talk about. It didn't matter if the other one knew, it still couldn't be said. Over the last few weeks, Cole had been upset about something but he couldn't tell her. Eight days ago he had received a call at three in the morning. He listened, grunted a few times and then kissed her and said he had to go. She hadn't heard anything from him until...until...no, please, this wasn't happening. Please, God, she prayed silently. We've barely had any time together. Please don't take him from me so soon.  
  
A few minutes after they had settled down, Cyra came in. Daniel hugged his wife, grateful for her support. He would have totally understood if she didn't come, but he was glad she had. Not just for his sake, but Janice's as well. "You might want to have someone talk to Mike," she said to Daniel and Justin. "I ran into him trying to lurk about."  
  
"What did he say to you?" Daniel asked sharply. If Mike had bothered Cyra, then he was going to get bolder and go after the staff and then finally the rest of the family.  
  
"Mostly, ouch, damn, that hurts," she replied. Daniel eyed her strangely. She shrugged. "He wouldn't leave me alone so I kicked him in the shin." Daniel smiled. Cyra knew how to handle his fellow journalists.  
  
They all had to sit and wait once more. Cyra changed positions several times, sometimes sitting with her husband, other times, quietly holding her beloved aunt's hand. A nurse came in and took Lon's blood, but she didn't have any news to give. Xander let Lon rest for a little while after and then sent him off to get with the cops and see if they knew anything. Xander envied him slightly. At least he was getting to do something that felt useful. Pacing, sitting, flipping aimlessly through magazines...nothing was helping to make the time go by faster.  
  
Finally a doctor emerged from the back that didn't immediately go to another family. He scanned the group in front of him. "And who is Daniel?" he asked with a smile.  
  
Daniel was on his feet in a second. "I'm Daniel Raleigh," he said, his words sounding more like a challenge.  
  
"I'm Dr. Ramirez," came the reply as he held out his hand. "Your sister's surgeon."  
  
"Is she..." Daniel tried to ask, for once not being able to get out a question. He missed the obvious relief on Justin's face. Emilio and Jhondie had known each other forever. He had been over many times as they studied together to prep for a surgery. Most importantly, Justin knew what he looked like when he was pleased with the way a surgery went.  
  
"She's fine," Dr. Ramirez answered quickly. "Heather's in post-op right now and we're going to keep her there for a little bit until the anesthesia wears off. After that, we'll be putting her in a room. Overall, she's doing very well and there haven't been any major complications."  
  
Daniel realized that his heart had started beating again at the doctor's encouraging words. "I want to see her."  
  
"As soon as she gets a room, we'll have you up there," the doctor replied, a seasoned veteran of family demands. At least this time he had an ally in the family that understood why certain hospital policies were in place. "There are a lot of patients in post-op and we can't be tripping over all of their families to get to them."  
  
"But she's going to be fine, right?" Daniel pursued. "Nothing unexpected could crop up?"  
  
"She's not in any foreseeable danger," Dr. Ramirez answered. "Short of something cataclysmic, I'm expecting her to be awake and alert and cursing hospital food by tomorrow." His voice lowered and became more serious. "As far as the prognosis for the injury, it's a little hard to say. The bullet that hit your sister fragmented which did more damage than usual. That's why her surgery went a little on the long side. There was damage done to the shoulder joint itself as well as the surrounding tissues. Under most circumstances, I would expect to see some loss of mobility. I've been aware for some time about the, ah, rather unique family traits you possess. Your aunt has said you all can heal more than normal, so given those extenuating circumstances, I'm not sure how much permanent damage Heather will suffer."  
  
Daniel wasn't too sure himself, to be honest. He had never really been hurt that bad before. Most kids took a few falls and broke a couple of bones during childhood, but it was much harder for him to be injured than his friends. Xander spoke up for him to the doctor. "The bones and muscle will grow back properly as long as it's all set," he said tiredly. "Nerves tend to heal quickly and scars fade in a couple of months at most."  
  
Ramirez was obviously impressed. "If more of my patients could heal like that, my job would be much easier," he commented. "On my way up here, I checked in with Dr. Carter to see how things were going there," he added. Now the intense looks he was getting made him feel like hungry wolves were stalking him.  
  
"Things are progressing," he said, feeling rather nervous all of a sudden, like a first year resident talking to a family for the first time. "Dr. Carter has a lot more to patch up than I did, of course, so she's still working, being very careful so that nothing gets missed. It's still going to be a while, but when I left his vitals were stable and Dr. Carter had everything under control." He wisely decided to not tell them the extent of the injuries that Jhondie was trying to fix. The man in that operating room should not be alive, plain and simple.  
  
He let them know that the waiting room volunteer would tell them when Heather was in a room and then left quickly. Daniel was already on the phone, leaving a message on his parent's voice mail the update. Ramirez was just glad that if any bad news was going to have to be delivered, it was going to be Jhondie that did it and not him. That family was definitely the kind to turn on the messenger and he didn't want to be anywhere around if they did. 


	8. Surgical Requirements

Shawna knew that cold didn't really bother her. She could deal with most temperatures ambivalently. But she couldn't stop shivering the minute she walked into the operating room where her brother laid cut open on a table. She wasn't really sure what to expect when she scrubbed in. Hell, the only time before that she had ever been in an operating room was when she was the patient back at Manticore. If it hadn't been for watching medical dramas on TV she wouldn't have known how to scrub in properly. What the hell was she doing there?  
  
Everything was calm when she walked into the room. It was ice cold, but not at all like a TV show where everything was rushed and people were shouting and calling for wild procedures. Instead there was just the soft hum of the machinery, some occasional beeps from a piece of equipment and the low murmuring of voices from the surgical team. Shawna recognized Jhondie despite her being masked and gowned.  
  
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Dr. Baker," Jhondie said without turning around and seeing who had entered. "She will be consulting on this case." A nurse immediately came over to help Shawna get into all of the gear required for her to stay in the room.  
  
Shawna approached the operating table gingerly once the nurse decided she had enough layers of protection. She had worn biological warfare suits with less protection than this. She had dealt with a million battle wounds before, but never anything like this. Jhondie's hands were moving like an artist's; each stroke of the scalpel prices and efficient. It was one thing to see someone mangled on the field. You did what you could to keep them alive long enough to get to the surgeons back at base. Now she was with the surgeon and it wasn't just another soldier on the table.  
  
"I'm not a doctor," she barely whispered into Jhondie's ear.  
  
"I know," Jhondie whispered back. "But you know far more about X-6 physiology than I do." Her eyes never left her patient as she sutured yet another small rupture.  
  
Shawna took a deep breath. Okay, so she did know more than the others. But she wasn't a surgeon at all and despite her experience, she wasn't a real doctor. She shouldn't be there. But this was Cole and she was going to do whatever was needed so that he would live. You know what you need to, she told herself. You know what a bunch of norms couldn't imagine. You know things that Jhondie doesn't understand.  
  
"I'm going to start on the spinal cord," the other surgeon announced. "With a little luck, there might be some sensation."  
  
"Where's the damage?" Shawna heard herself asking him with far more confidence than she was really feeling.  
  
"Lumbar," he replied. "He won't walk again, but we might be able to get continence."  
  
Shawna snorted. "Is there something else that you can be doing that's critical?"  
  
The doctor shot her daggers. "The longer these nerves are separated, the less likely there is going to be the slightest degree of healing."  
  
"On normal humans," Shawna shot back. "I know for a fact that you've never cut open anyone like him before. There are a whole lot of stem cells floating around in his blood right now. You just make sure the nerve ends are close enough and they'll do the rest."  
  
"Rich," Jhondie interrupted gently. "Dr. Baker is an expert on transgenics. If she feels that his spinal cord will heal on it's own, then I need you in other places."  
  
Both of them looked at Shawna, waiting for her confirmation. This was why she hated command positions, she thought as their eyes bored into her. "He'll be walking in a couple of weeks, max," she declared firmly. "The last spinal injury I saw took four days to heal."  
  
Rich whistled low. "Billions of dollars spent to create transgenic weapons and I don't know how many patients I've seen who would have done anything to have a way to be able to walk again." He glanced at Jhondie. "No wonder "The Truth" was so adamant on no more genetics programs like Manticore."  
  
"One reason among many," she replied. They all went back to work, stitching, cauterizing and digging out bullet fragments. Within minutes the staff knew for certain that Shawna was also transgenic. Within the hour, not a single one cared. She knew what she was doing and even Rich had to agree that her expertise was making a difficult job far easier.  
  
At some point another doctor entered the operating room. Again, Jhondie greeted Dr. Ramirez and introduced him to Shawna without turning around. It was slightly creepy to Shawna that she knew every little thing that was going on in her operating room, but it was also rather helpful as well. Ramirez told them that Heather was out of surgery and doing fine. He asked how their patient was.  
  
"You want the real story or the family update?" Jhondie asked. That surprised Shawna a little. She thought it couldn't be going that bad since he was still alive.  
  
"How much different is it?" he asked, coming closer to look at what was going on.  
  
"Remember that thirty-seven car pile up and how all of the serious victims were taken here?" she asked. He nodded. "This is worse."  
  
His forehead wrinkled. "And he's still alive?"  
  
"You've never met him," Shawna piped up. "He's far too stubborn to die."  
  
"I think it was more that he was in good company when he was shot," Jhondie said to her.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Heather."  
  
"Heather?" Shawna thought for a second. "I guess so if she kept the wrong kind of blood from being transfused."  
  
"More than that. He started bleeding more when she was taken away," Jhondie pointed out.  
  
If she had to make a decision, Shawna would have to say that she was closer to Liz than she was Heather. She had more in common with Liz and was the one that taught her how to drive to win in a race. It wasn't how Shawna had come into Heather's life either. The girl adored Xander. It was just that Liz was more like Shawna was at her age, minus the occasional assassination.  
  
"You really think she's that strong?" Shawna asked. She didn't spend enough time to know what Heather was capable of. Liz, yes, that's why she wasn't in the slightest surprised about what they had been doing in Europe.  
  
"I know she's capable of some rather amazing things when she's under stress," Jhondie answered.  
  
Both of the other doctors in the room were stunned. "Why didn't you get her into medicine if she can redirect blood flow?" Ramirez managed to get out. Jhondie had said telekinetic to him before, but he didn't understand the implications and how much that could be used.  
  
"Law enforcement got to her first," Shawna replied.  
  
"Simply amazing," he muttered. "Well, I need to go and let Heather's family know she's well. Page me if you need me to scrub in."  
  
"I will," Jhondie said. "Her brother, Daniel is out there and he can let her parents know how she's doing." She had a feeling he would want to spend as little time with that family as possible.  
  
More time passed as they worked diligently. Cole had been shot five times, once from the front, the rest in the back. Shawna speculated that it was to keep Heather from getting hurt, or else there wouldn't have been any way for someone to actually be able to hit him. She had seen the man dodge a hail of bullets before. But this time he hadn't and there was so much damage that they would think they were almost done with one thing and then have to stop because something else was getting critical. And they didn't exactly have a limitless supply of blood either.  
  
"Do you know the ETA on anyone else?" Jhondie asked, eyeing the blood they had left. If Cole would just stop bleeding in a new place every two minutes, this would be going much better.  
  
"Cray's at least eight to nine hours out," Shawna replied. "He had to make sure his boat's taken care of before he could leave." She glanced at the clock. "I'm sure Liz, Cameron and Alicia are going to be here as soon as a plane can get them. Nobody could get hold of Ty. And then there's me."  
  
"Xander can't get anyone else here?"  
  
"The ones left are mostly abroad. There's one out in California besides Cray, but that's it. I don't think anyone else could be recalled from what they're doing, and they wouldn't be able to get here in time even if they could."  
  
She went to say something else, but a small glint caught her eye. Without thinking about it, she used her enhanced vision to clarify the scene. A tiny sliver of metal was ripping deeper into one of the arteries, catching onto it, ripping and then getting pulled down further to stick in another place.  
  
"Hold on a second," she muttered, grabbing some fine tweezers and carefully removing the offending sliver. A cauterizing wand sealed the breaches and the artery wall actually held for once. But now Rich was looking at her oddly.  
  
"Your eyes," he said softly. "When they dilate like that, you can see better?" Shawna nodded. Rich glanced at his boss and took a big swing. "Jhondie, why do you use the magnifiers then?"  
  
Jhondie stiffened. She knew that this moment was going to eventually happen, but still the initial instinct was to lie. Stay in the shadows, not casually converse with coworkers about her origins. It seemed like every person in the room was frozen, waiting for her response.  
  
"Because it's very tiring to use constantly," Jhondie replied, trying to keep her voice perfectly neutral. "I do on occasion." Everyone took an awe-filled second to digest what she had just admitted to. There might have been more questions but the staff was too well trained. They had a life to save and then the gossip could flow freely.  
  
Jhondie averaged between two or three job offers a month from various hospitals around the world. She had been seriously tempted by a few of them, but had stayed in New York. Now she had to wonder if they would still come if the hospital asked her to resign over this. Maybe she could go back to California. Only in Los Angeles could a transgenic surgeon be considered "trendy" and exclusive, someone that only the beautiful people could have access to. But this was *her* hospital and as much as they missed LA, Justin couldn't exactly leave New York's "Truth" East Coast headquarters and...and...problem.  
  
"He's going into arrhythmia," Jhondie spoke up urgently. Everyone suddenly started moving quickly in response to her statement. A nurse grabbed a tray out of one cabinet and another started filling syringes with various drugs.  
  
"Excuse me, honey," a nurse with a syrupy southern accent said as she slid in front of Shawna. The nurse immediately began holding some piece of equipment for Jhondie and moving it to her directions.  
  
"How do you know?" Shawna asked in confusion. Everything was going along fine! Jhondie didn't answer, too focused on her patient to worry about nonessentials.  
  
The nurse glanced back at Shawna. "The best trauma surgeons always know," she explained, immediately going back to what she was doing. A bleep on one of the monitors signaled an irregularity. Another odd bleep and then the monitor went nuts.  
  
Everything seemed to blur to Shawna as she realized that her brother was clinically dead on the table in front of her. She was pushed back, the experiences team pulling in tighter to save their patient. She could barely tell apart the voices, as they called out vital information, Jhondie calling for drugs, procedures, changes. Shawna's back was literally against the wall. She had never been sure if she believed in God, but now she found herself praying silently, the same words over and over.  
  
Please, God, no, not this, please let them save him, oh God, no, please no... 


	9. Crime Scene

Lon was irritated that he had to rest for a little while after giving blood before he could take off and find out what happened. He wanted to get up and get moving but he was going to have to be in top form and until the room stayed perfectly still, he wasn't going anywhere. But finally he was feeling well enough to get going and start investigating. He knew why Xander was in New York. The CIA was doing software upgrades on some of their systems and Xander was in New York with several other members of management for a training seminar. Daniel lived here, so that explained his presence. So what in God's name were Cole and Heather doing in this city?  
  
The detective working the case, Strickman, had left his card with the family liaison. Now Lon called him and told him that he was going to the crime scene and would like him to be there. The detective wanted to know why the FBI was interested in the case and Lon had told him rather curtly that the case was soon to be under federal jurisdiction. That got some attention. He said he would be there. Justin had let Lon borrow Jhondie's car and he took off.  
  
Strickman was waiting when Lon pulled into the motel's parking lot. He raked his fingers through his blondish-brown hair. This was where Cole and Heather had been shot? Jesus Christ. But time to deal with the detective who introduced himself with a handshake. "Detective Nick Strickman," he said, his words sounding more like a challenge.  
  
"Special Agent Lon Bryant," Lon replied in his best "fed" tone, showing him his badge. The tone pissed off the locals, yes, but it was still intimidating even if they didn't want to admit it.  
  
"Care to tell me why in hell the FBI is so concerned with this case?" Strickman asked bluntly.  
  
"The victims were both federal agents," Lon answered. It was just easier to classify them both as feds rather than try to explain what Cole was and admit that he had no idea what he was doing here.  
  
The detective nodded. "It's not going to be anything worthy of your time," he said snidely. "Unless the FBI is into investigating lovers triangles."  
  
Lon froze for a second. A what? "Excuse me?"  
  
The detective pulled down the police tape and opened the motel room door. "We're still looking into the shooter," he said, obviously pleased to have gotten one past the agent, "but there was a chambermaid in the next room and she heard everything that was said."  
  
They stepped into the room. It was the usual cheap motel fair with two stained double beds covered with urine-yellow spreads and the carpet had that old mildew smell lingering. But this room had a body outline on the floor and Lon couldn't help but feel ill at the splash of blood across the back wall.  
  
"Apparently the two victims were in the room," Strickman narrated. "The shooter, Victoria Ashcroft by her drivers license, breaks into the room and screams," he checked a notepad, " 'you cheating bastard' while firing five shots. There's another shot, apparently fired by the female victim that hits Ashcroft in the head. She's dead on the scene and the maid was already dialing 9-1-1 when she heard the first shot."  
  
Either the cop was lying or else the maid was, Lon thought. First, there was no way that Cole would cheat on Janice with one woman, much less two. Second, hello, Heather was his niece. So what if they weren't related by blood. He had been an uncle to her since she was a baby and Lon didn't care how close they were, he had never even gotten a hint of a feeling that Cole thought of Heather as anything but his favorite niece. Something was very, very wrong here.  
  
"Any other witnesses?" Lon asked, trying to figure out a way to refute what he was hearing.  
  
"Front clerk saw Ashcroft come in," Strickman replied. "Look, it's a no- brainer. She was drunk. There's an empty bottle of gin in her car and you could still smell it on the body. She was pissed that her boyfriend was messing around with some other woman, got drunk and decided to go for some blood. She just didn't know that the other woman was a better shot. The hospital said both victims were in surgery, so we have to wait for them to get out before we can confirm the details and case closed."  
  
Lon gave him a piercing look, his hazel eyes practically icing over. "I'll decide when the case is closed," he said coldly. "Where's the clerk?"  
  
The clerk was still on duty from that morning. Technically on duty, at least. Lon doubted if he had checked in a single customer since the shooting. The clerk was a young man in his early twenties that wasn't quite out of the acne stage yet. He was rail thin and very twitchy. His dark eyes darted all over the room, still lit with the excitement of the morning's events.  
  
"So, yeah," I've seen 'em all week," he was explaining. To a fed this time! Dude, this was going to so rock at his next D & D game! "I mean, not the chick that went all psycho, but yeah the other two have been here. No way you don't notice an ass like that chick had, you know?"  
  
Actually, Lon had never checked out his niece's rear end before, but he smiled knowingly and the kid continued. "See, I was thinking that one of those two have got to, you know, got a ball and chain at home, and this was fun on the side, right? I mean, I saw them the other night and dude, all we needed was some guitar music in the background and we had the start of a great porno, you know what I mean?"  
  
Lon swallowed. "They were, ah, being physically affectionate?" he asked, hoping he was hearing wrong.  
  
The kid laughed. "He almost had her shirt off of her before they could get to the door and then she wrapped those legs around him." The clerk shuddered with delight at the memory. "It was hot. I mean the desert in August kind of hot. And see, the TV in 118 was out, so I was swapping it out and those two were in 117. Man, I could hear them banging through the wall. I don't know what he was doing, but she was wailing." He laughed. "I don't know why the guys in 116 weren't complaining, but hey, what kind of guy would tell a show like that to knock it off?"  
  
Lon thanked him and let him go back to work. He had good instincts for when someone was lying and this time, it was telling him that the kid was telling the truth. At least he believed it to be the truth. There was still something very, very wrong with this whole situation and Lon was determined to find out what it was. He went back to the motel room and spent a long minute just taking it in as a whole. It was time to forget he was a brother and an uncle. Erase all suppositions and just let the facts roll in. What did he see?  
  
Open cartons of Chinese food were on the ratty-looking dresser. One of its drawers was half opened. Empty drink cans sat on the end table. One was knocked on its side. There was a suitcase on the floor with some women's clothes in it. They were due to check out the next day. There were a few toiletries on the counter in the bathroom. The beds were unmade. A woman's purse was open on the little table next to the bed.  
  
Now he let what he knew about Heather and Cole color the same scene. It was like one of those "what's different" puzzles where the second picture looked like the first until you noticed the small details. First, he had never known Heather or Cole to pack early. Ever. It was one of those things that Alicia had complained about enough. The room was a mess. Cole hated having a mess around him and especially where he slept was always pin- neat. Food cartons and drink cans would have been in the trash no matter how messy Heather was. Lon zeroed in on the purse. It was a cheap-looking thing, old and beaten with some of the beads missing as if it was pulled from a bargain bin at a thrift shop. The women's clothes in the suitcase also looked like thrift-store caliber. If there was anything that would make Heather seem like a rich brat, it was that she liked to dress in quality clothing at all times. Even her jeans were designer or they weren't covering the rear end that the clerk had been drooling over.  
  
Lon went to the purse and poked through it. On the side lining was a small row of stitches, the same dirty beige as the interior. Lon's fingers ran over the lining around that area and felt something hidden inside. He carefully broke the stitches and a key fell in his hand. On the plastic cap covering the end was inscribed the name and address of a bus station not to far from here and the locker number that it belonged to. Yeah, this was what he had been looking for. There was something wrong with this whole set-up and Lon was willing to bet whatever was in this locker was going to tell an entirely different story.  
  
"We already ran down the ID," Strickman said from behind him. "Came up clean, but we didn't have her listed as a fed. The in-depth background takes a day or so and then we would have known it was Agent Stanton then."  
  
"Who?" Lon asked idly, most of his attention turned on using a pencil to look at the other items in the purse. Some gum, a purple hairbrush with glitter on it, some funky-colored makeup, a purple change purse with three dollars and sixteen cents in it, two purple pens and a CD from the latest boyband filled the small purse. Interesting. Heather's favorite color was turquoise, not purple.  
  
"Agent Donna Stanton," Strickman said slowly. "Your agent? The one that was shot?"  
  
Lon froze for a moment. She had a fake ID? "Was there any other ID in the room?" he asked, ignoring the detective's attitude.  
  
"Yeah, the other victim's wallet was here with a driver's license," came the reply. "Nothing on Luke Mott either, but if we had known he was a federal officer, we wouldn't have wasted the time trying to chase him down."  
  
Lon straightened and turned around so that he was facing Strickman. His eyes burned into Strickman making the detective have to fight from squirming. "Nothing else?" Lon asked urgently. "Your men searched the room and there was no other form of identification found at all?"  
  
Strickman would have been pissed at the inference that his men missed something, but obviously this agent knew something that was at major odds with the way the story appeared to have gone. "Like I said, that's all we found. They were legitimate ID's in all databases, including the DOT."  
  
Lon walked out of the room, grabbing his cell and hitting the speed dial for Xander's phone. Xander picked up on the first ring. "Heather's out, doing good, still waiting on Cole," Xander answered the phone. "What have you got?"  
  
"A whole lot of weird," Lon answered. "I need you to find out if Heather had her badge on her when she was brought in. There's just way too much weird ass shit going on right now to explain, but I need to know where her ID is. They both had fake driver's licenses here but nothing at all real," he added, knowing Strickman was trying to listen.  
  
"I'll check here," Xander said. "But if they were on assignment..."  
  
"When was the last time you went without ID?" Lon interrupted. "On duty, off, on assignment or just to the grocery store?"  
  
Xander had to grant him that. "Perp?"  
  
"Heather got her first."  
  
"Good. Saves us time. Now what happened?"  
  
Lon paused. "Other than they got shot, I'm not sure yet. I'll explain later. Has anyone gotten hold of Ty yet?"  
  
"No," Xander answered. And that was very strange when one of their own didn't call back right away.  
  
Lon's voice lowered as he walked away. "Very quietly get your people on that," he said. "I don't know what the hell was really going on here, but I'm willing to bet that Ty has some answers."  
  
"I'm on it."  
  
"Can Heather be questioned yet?"  
  
"No, she's still..." Xander's voice broke off and there was a pause.  
  
"Xan?"  
  
"Oh, shit," his normally strong, confident brother whispered. "Alicia's here." 


	10. Enter the Parents

Under normal circumstances, it would have been impossible to get across the country in less than eight hours. It took at least seven to fly and then considering an hour for boarding, unloading and just plain checking in, even eight hours was cutting it close. But for some reason, when they saw Alicia and Zack walk into the waiting room barely seven and a half hours after being called, nobody was surprised.  
  
Xander was on his feet immediately. His sister was still in the workout clothes she had been wearing when she got the news, but that didn't lessen the command presence she always carried with her. It was both amusing and annoying that she was still their CO despite everything. "Cole's still in, Heather was taken up to room 728 a little bit ago," Xander said crisply. "Daniel and Cyra are with Heather right now."  
  
Without a word, Alicia turned and headed to the nearest elevators. She was worried about Cole, yes, but her daughter came first. They got into the elevator, not saying a word. The grim set of their faces made another visitor decide to take the next elevator to his floor. He didn't want to be alone with those two for a second. The doors shut and the car started going up to the seventh floor.  
  
Zack's arm slipped around his wife's waist and he pulled her small body against his. "Breathe," he ordered gruffly, feeling her start shaking against him. "Daniel said she was doing well. He wouldn't lie to us." It was the first moment since leaving Seattle that she had a second to panic and he knew Alicia needed that if she was to cope with the rest of the day. She would be in perfect control in front of her siblings but he knew she needed just a minute to get it out.  
  
"My baby's hurt," Alicia sniffed, grateful for the strong arms wrapped tightly around her. She had seen her brothers and sisters injured before. They had been shot even. Knife wounds, gouges, broken bones, even a few animal bites. But this was her daughter. She had felt Heather grow inside of her body, fed her from her own breast, and watched her grow from a baby to a girl to a beautiful young woman. Heather being hurt was simply intolerable.  
  
"She's enough like you," Zack said softly. "She'll heal good as new." He had to convince her of that in order to convince himself. When Alicia had called him and told him of Daniel's call, for one of the rare times in his life he had been totally paralyzed, unable to move. Not his daughter. All the people in his life that he had lost, and none of that prepared him in the slightest for what it felt like when he heard that Heather had been shot. At the time, he had no idea how badly she was hurt. Once he would have believed that the worst pain he had ever felt was when Alicia had stopped breathing on that cold concrete floor. That wasn't anything compared to knowing that his child had been injured.  
  
By the time Alicia got home, Zack had an overnight bag and plane reservations made. She didn't even come to a complete stop as she approached the house, only slowing down enough so that he could get in as they then sped off to the airport to catch their flight. Zack wasn't sure how Alicia managed it, but she spent the entire wild ride (including using an emergency lane for three miles and a few blocks of a sidewalk at one point) on the phone with the airline manager and got the man to hold the plane for fifteen minutes so that they could make the flight.  
  
They had been checking in with Daniel while on the flight and Zack had breathed a big sigh of relief when they got word that Heather was out of surgery and doing well. Alicia wasn't able to feel the same way. She still had a brother of status unknown and there was no way she was going to relax until she was with Heather and could see with her own eyes that she was going to be okay. When they got to New York, Zack had quite calmly shoved some businessman aside, taking his cab while Alicia coolly slid in and handed the cabbie a hundred dollar bill. She told him that no change would be required if he could get them to St. Luke's in fifteen minutes. He made it in fourteen and a half.  
  
Alicia had control over herself when the elevator doors opened. Well, as close to in control as she was going to get. They marched down the hallway to room 728 where a young man in a dark suit was sitting beside the door. He looked at them coldly and then made the mistake of opening his mouth.  
  
"Hospital personnel only are allowed in this room," he declared. "All visitors must be cleared through Agent Brick..." His words were cut off as Zack grabbed him by the neck and flicked him down the hall like an annoying bug. The young CIA agent was stunned and for a moment thought about going for his gun but then quickly reconsidered. He grabbed his communicator instead.  
  
"Agent Brickman, this is Agent Walker," he said formally. "Two visitors are requesting entry to the contained area."  
  
There was a snort of laughter at the other end. "You on the floor or hanging out a window?" came the response. Xander felt a little dumb that he forgot to call the agent he had ordered posted at Heather's room. But Alicia tended to make him forget that he was supposed to be the one giving orders, not sitting there waiting for the next one. "They're her parents," he added. "Stay out of their way." Like the kid was going to need to be told that.  
  
Inside the room, Alicia had already forgotten about the guard outside Heather's room. She thought she was doing well in handling the situation. But that went out the window the moment she walked in the room and saw Heather. Alicia didn't notice the hot tears that slipped down her cheeks as she took in how pale and small Heather looked in that bed with the wires and tubes strapped to her. Monitors reflected Heather's vital statistics, all showing good, yes, but it was the fact that such things were needed that tore into Alicia.  
  
Daniel and Cyra had been sitting beside Heather's bed when the parents entered. They stood, not sure what to do when Alicia went to the bed, taking her daughter's hand gently.  
  
"Heather," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Mommy's here. It's okay, now, Mommy and Daddy are here."  
  
Heather stirred slightly, her lips parting as she tried to say something, but fell back into unconsciousness. "She's still really out of it," Daniel said quietly. "The doctor said she would probably sleep the rest of the day and night because of the anesthesia and pain killers." He and Cyra came around the bed and then hugged both of his parents.  
  
"Do you know what happened?" Zack asked his son.  
  
"Lon's looking into it," Daniel replied. "All I know right now is that Justin called me while I was in my office and told me to be on the roof in two minutes. Xander and I had gotten breakfast that morning before he had his conference on that new software and he had gone up to the roof with me. When we got there, the helicopter was powered up and Justin told us that Jhondie had called and said that Heather and Cole had been shot and blood donors were needed. He was surprised to see Xander, but it was good thing he was there too. We took off and Heather had already been taken to surgery and Cole wasn't able to talk."  
  
"Xander ordered the door guard?" Alicia asked, annoyed at the interference, but pleased that her brother had thought about the details in a crisis. Xander sometimes had a bad habit of forgetting the minor issues sometimes.  
  
"Yeah," Daniel answered hesitantly. He didn't want to say it, but he knew it was best to get the rest out now. "There have already been some reporters lurking." His father's sharp look almost made him take a step back. Zack had not wanted the article published. He didn't care if it meant a new Manticore. His family's safety came first, and remaining in the shadows was the safest bet.  
  
"There's only one in the hospital, and Justin and I picked him," Daniel said quickly. "Jhondie had to let her staff in the ER know and probably the surgical team as well and rumors are going to get around. Xander ordered the guard because he didn't want anyone to take advantage of the situation."  
  
Zack went to say something, but Alicia touched his arm. "Please," she said softly, knowing where he was going. "Not right now." She needed her husband's strength right now and not a bunch of bickering. Heather didn't need that around her either.  
  
"We'll talk later," he growled at Daniel.  
  
"Are the kids okay?" Alicia asked, wanting to get the subject off of the ramifications of Daniel's article. That had been well debated already and she wasn't in the mood for it right now.  
  
"Carmella has them," Cyra answered. "So they're in heaven right now. She's teaching Tanya a little Italian every time she sits for them." Alicia smiled a little. "And the twins called as well, both of them are on their way to New York and Daniel called Jon. He'll be here on the next flight."  
  
Heather stirred again, breathing out something as she tried to speak. Alicia leaned closer. "What, honey? I couldn't hear you." Heather repeated it, her face taking on a distressed look.  
  
Alicia straightened, smiling sadly. "Don't worry about your keys," she told her daughter gently. Zack squeezed her other hand and Alicia squeezed back, acknowledging the comfort he was providing her. Heather was forever running around her apartment, tearing it apart as she looked for her keys.  
  
Zack brushed a red-gold curl off of his daughter's forehead. He hadn't seen her this still and helpless since she was an infant. "Just rest," he ordered gently. "We'll find your keys for you, I promise." Heather looked like she was going to say something else, but sleep claimed her once again.  
  
Alicia wiped her cheeks, remembering whom she was and what else she needed to do. "I need to check on Cole," she said to Zack. He nodded and kissed her forehead.  
  
"I can run down there," Daniel volunteered. He wasn't thrilled at the thought of being with his father right now.  
  
"You need to stay close," Alicia replied. Her voice lowered. "I don't trust anyone with Heather right now except for family. You'll know if someone comes in here with bad intentions." Daniel nodded. He didn't normally pry into minds, but this was a special case. Nobody was going to touch his sister that wasn't thinking happy thoughts.  
  
Alicia left the room and headed back to surgical waiting. Nobody would have thought a few minutes before she was a frightened parent. Her blue eyes were total ice in a face of stone; only a bit of redness admitted that she had been crying. She marched back into the waiting room like general about to get a briefing from her lieutenants.  
  
"Have you heard from Lon?" she asked Xander sharply.  
  
"Perp's dead, not much else known right now," Xander asked crisply, fighting back the urge to salute. "He had to check something else out and then is going to return for a full debriefing."  
  
Alicia nodded and then it hit her what was missing from the gathered assembly. "Where's Tynell?"  
  
"Situation unknown," Xander answered. "Finally spoke with Karen and she said he was on training maneuvers and she wasn't expecting to hear from him for another day or two. I've got a couple of men on it."  
  
"How's Heather doing?" Justin asked. Mentioning her daughter broke through Alicia's cold façade.  
  
"She keeps mumbling about her keys," Alicia said with a little smile, trying to keep the tears out of her eyes. Justin smiled back at her. If Heather was back to her keys, then she couldn't be doing too badly.  
  
"I can call you down here as soon as we hear something about Cole," he offered, understanding how torn she must be feeling right now. If this was his brother Bryan and daughter Taylor, or even one of the boys, Jamie or Hunter, for that matter, he knew he would be going nuts. "There's not much you can do here anyways except wait."  
  
"Do they need more blood?" Alicia asked, remembering what Daniel had said about needing X-6 blood donors.  
  
"Not now." Jhondie's voice was soft, but it carried through the room, claiming all of the attention immediately. 


	11. Surgical Skills

When Jhondie spoke, everyone turned sharply away from where Alicia and Xander were standing over to the entrance of the surgical unit. The others wouldn't have realized it, but Justin could see how exhausted his wife was. He had seen her come out of thirty-six hours of back-to-back surgeries before and not look this utterly exhausted. What the others did notice was that despite being in clean scrubs, there was a streak of dried blood on her white lab coat and another splatter of it in her hair near the hairline.  
  
Jhondie immediately went to Janice, sitting down beside her. It was more out of habit and training than actual thought. You always went to the spouse or next of kin and gave them the news directly. And for some reason, sitting beside them made it more personal. "He's in post-op right now," she said. "There was a great deal of internal bleeding, but we were able to get it repaired and keep him stabilized."  
  
"He's okay?" Janice asked breathlessly.  
  
Jhondie paused. "He's still very much in critical condition," she replied neutrally. "The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours are going to give us a better understanding of long-term prognosis."  
  
Doctor-speak for I have no idea, Justin thought. Everyone else might think that Jhondie was simply being professional right now and still keeping her cool as a surgeon and not a family member, but Justin knew her far too well. She was speaking too carefully, choosing her words rather then simply stating what she thought.  
  
"What room is he going in and when?" Xander asked sharply. "I need to get someone posted..."  
  
"Not in the ICU," Jhondie interrupted. She stood, looking him right in the eye. "He's going to be spending at least the next several days in the ICU and nobody is going to cause a disturbance in there. He is not the only critical patient in this hospital and none of you are going to endanger them, thinking that you are protecting Cole."  
  
"He won't need a CIA guard," Janice said, looking up at Xander darkly. "I'm going to be with him and there's not much better in the agency than that."  
  
"And the twins are coming," Alicia added. "They'll know if something's up long before any of us would."  
  
"When can I see him?" Janice asked. She knew Jhondie was being honest with her and that he had made it through, blah blah. But she wasn't going to get rid of this feeling of sickening panic until she was able to touch him and just be there with him.  
  
Jhondie sat back down, the threatening transgenic gone and the caring healer back. "He'll be in recovery for a little while longer and then he'll be taken to the ICU. Policy is a visitor every ten or fifteen minutes on the hour." She looked around at the others. "Normally it's only one visitor at a time, but I'm willing to allow two. That's Janice plus one more, period. Trust me, you do not want to cause any of my staff a moment's worth of grief, is that understood?"  
  
Nothing else really needed to be said. She was X-5. They were X-6. If she felt like it, she could wipe the floor with them.  
  
"Jhondie," Janice said, getting her attention back. "Thank you." Her words carried far more meaning than just thanking her for patching up Cole. Janice knew how much this had and would cost for Jhondie, yet she had done it all anyways.  
  
Jhondie smiled. "Don't thank me just yet. We've still got a lot of recovery ahead. There was a spinal injury, but Shawna said that it would heal in time. I'll know more by tomorrow on where it stands."  
  
"Where's Shawna at?" Xander asked. She should be with Cole, watching over him, but Jhondie didn't seem like she was in the mood to tolerate any more changes to the normal routine. He was going to get hurt when she heard about the cleaner team.  
  
"She went up to the roof," Jhondie replied. She stood. "I think she needed a few minutes to herself." She looked down at Janice. "I'm going to get cleaned up and then I will be back to escort you to the ICU."  
  
With that, she went back through the door leading to the surgical unit. Justin waited for a minute, and then went to follow her. "Where are you going?" Xander snapped. If he couldn't go through those hallowed doors and check on his brother, then Justin wasn't either.  
  
"Drop it Xander," Alicia ordered sharply. "He's got someone to take care of and right now, so do you." Justin shot her a grin of appreciation and then proceeded after Jhondie. Xander thought about arguing more, but then realized it wouldn't do any good and she was right on his end. He left Janice with Alicia and headed up to the roof.  
  
There were a couple of people smoking up there in the late-autumn sunset light, but Shawna was alone in a corner, sitting cross-legged on the ledge. She was sitting absolutely still and it wasn't until Xander came closer that he saw the silent tears running down her face. Xander sat down, facing her side and then hugged her tightly.  
  
Shawna sniffed, pressing herself tightly against his chest. "He died," she cried softly. "Oh God, it was going along just fine and then he was gone."  
  
Xander jumped, not sure if he was going to be sick or scream or something. "But Jhondie said..." he choked out. "She said he made it!"  
  
"It was horrible," Shawna sobbed. "They lost him and then they got him back and it was just, okay, not a big deal, we'll do it again if we need to. And I was standing there against the wall and I could think is why do they want me there. I'm not a real doctor, much less a surgeon. And they kept asking me things and I had to make all these decisions and now...what if he dies? What if I was wrong about something and it kills him?"  
  
Now she was crying heavily. Xander couldn't speak for a long minute, mostly due to his heart trying to restart after hearing her blurt out that Cole was dead. Okay. She was just stressed. She had never been in a command position and got stuck in one today. Then it got really bad. He could work with that. But for now he let her get it out, stroking her hair before tilting her face up to him and kissing her gently.  
  
"He made it," Xander consoled. This was awkward. Shawna could shrug off anything. Seeing her this upset was hard to deal with. He continued, "When I first got here, I didn't think Cole was going to make it another five minutes. But he's through surgery and he'll live. So whatever you said or did in there, it had to have helped."  
  
"You weren't in there," she said hollowly. "Jhondie yelled at me to come over and I didn't think I could even move much less help. But then all of a sudden I had my hands on his heart and I was pumping it for Cole. He's always been so strong and sure but there he was and his life was literally between my hands. They...we saved his life and nobody thought it was anything extraordinary."  
  
Her tears were diminishing as she looked over the New York City skyline. "We spent so much time being trained to kill. Even as a medic on the outside, I was with a group of people that were of the same mindset. I spent so long taking lives and then I'm being asked to give life. I don't know how to do that. How is he going to live if I don't know the first thing about giving life?  
  
Xander grabbed her shoulders and roughly made her face him. "Don't you ever say that," he growled. "You know how to make someone want to live. That counts."  
  
She couldn't keep his intense gaze. "Now I know how you felt," she said softly. "Xan, I am so sorry."  
  
Xander hugged her against him again. "It gave me you," he replied. "It's okay. It really is." Actually, not. It wasn't okay after all these years and it never would be okay. But she didn't need to hear that now. After Manticore had collapsed and they all went their separate ways, Shawna had known that she was the key to starting it all up again. She was where the X-7's were going to come from. Things were said, little whispers and Shawna finally made the decision whether or not she was going to be the one in control of her life and body.  
  
Officially, she had been shot during an attempt at a mugging. In truth, she had simply applied her knowledge of anatomy and trajectories and shot herself in the lower abdomen. Xander found out about her plan minutes to late to stop her. He had even heard the gunshot as he raced to keep her from hurting herself and then had to be the one to take her to the hospital on base. The doctors had to do some serious surgery in order to save her life, including removing her uterus because the damaged organ was the source of the worst bleeding.  
  
Xander had been furious with her for doing something so stupid. They had been such close friends, for her to just do something like this killed him. She held to the story of a mugger, but he knew the truth. The others had thought it was odd for her to get nailed like that, but everyone was entitled to an off day. Xander had wanted to be mad at her forever, but eventually he came to see her reasoning on why she had done it. There was simply no other way and at the time, they were all still being watched to make sure they were really loyal.  
  
Instead of being furious and refusing to have anything to do with her, Xander had taken care of Shawna while she healed. It was painful for her mentally as well as physically. Of all of the X-6, Shawna had mentioned liking the thought of having children. It hurt to know that was never going to happen now. During that time, she relied heavily on Xander. They had been close their whole lives, but they had never felt brotherly or sisterly towards each other. They had joked before that they were too good of friends to be siblings. Shawna had no problems referring to Cole or Lon as her brother but Xander was different. While she stayed with him that kind of different ended up becoming a totally new kind of different.  
  
It had been a strange relationship by any standards. They had been together when they could and weren't when they couldn't be. Neither of them made any unreasonable demands on the other or tried to get them to be what they weren't. They had known each other way too long to try something like that. Over the last ten or fifteen years, since Shawna was in the DC area more or less permanently, they had stayed a constant. They had talked about moving in together a few times and even marriage once in a drunken moment. But in the end, they liked what they had and were determined to keep it.  
  
"I know it all worked out," Shawna said, shaking Xander out of old memories. "But I wish I had found another way."  
  
"So do I," Xander replied honestly. "But it's long since done and over with. Right now, you need to be thinking about how bad you're going to rag on Cole that you were the one that saved his life." He grinned. "And tell him that you carved your initials somewhere, but refuse to tell him where."  
  
Shawna had to laugh at that. For all of the pranks that they had ever played on each other, that would be the ultimate. "I'm better now," she declared and then let out a small chuckle. "But you should have seen Jhondie. I swear, I am glad we never had to go up against her."  
  
"I did," Xander said, rubbing his jaw in painful memory.  
  
"I mean seriously," she said, ignoring the dark look he flashed her. His assignment had been quite serious to him. She ignored it and continued, "She was totally cool under fire. Could have been sipping tea with one hand and resuscitating him with the other at the same time."  
  
"I can see that," Xander replied. "Come on. They're going to move Cole over to the ICU soon."  
  
She glanced down. "I need to get cleaned up and then I'll meet you there," she decided after looking at her dirty surgical scrubs. Xander helped her up and then they headed back downstairs.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Justin hesitated at the door of the women's changing room. He knew Jhondie would be in there, but was she alone? Luckily one of the surgical assistants came out and he asked her if anyone else was in there. It was after the point of scheduled surgeries, so it should be quiet by now. The assistant told him that Dr. Carter was in there but that was it before continuing on her way. Justin debated for another second and then walked in.  
  
Jhondie was sitting on a bench with her legs tucked against her chest, chin resting on her knees, staring at her hands. Justin cursed mentally. That was a very bad sign. It had been a few years since he had seen her do that flipping her hands over and over, first staring at her palms then fingers and then the backs of her hands and then over again. When she first started practicing surgery, she would get like this every few months or so. As time went on, it happened less and less.  
  
The first time had been after she did an ambulance rotation. All interns and residents were being required to spend time out with paramedics. It was good for them to see patients from start to finish if they were dealing in emergency medicine. Jhondie was lumped in with them since she was training to be a trauma surgeon. She had been on a run where a bad car accident had occurred and a young woman was trapped inside the vehicle. Jhondie had gotten inside of the car and did the usual with checking vitals and setting up an IV. The young woman, Amanda, was eight months pregnant and Jhondie was talking to her about pregnancy and they compared notes as Jhondie tried to keep her from moving. The last thing in the world was for Amanda to move. An extremely heavy piece of glass that had been on the truck that Amanda hit had gone through the windshield and now pressed a sharp edge next to her throat.  
  
The rescue was going well. The workers had to be very careful so as not to jar the vehicle any more that absolutely required but despite the slow progress it was going along well and Jhondie didn't see any reason why Amanda or her baby wouldn't make it. She had comforted Amanda with that and Amanda said she didn't care just whatever happened, make sure her baby lived. She had spent almost eight years trying to conceive and for her to lose her baby at this point would kill her and her husband.  
  
It should have been fine. Everything should have worked. But they were in California. A tremor started under their feet and suddenly Jhondie was thrown back, the mangled car and truck sliding away from her. Jhondie blinked several times, getting the dust out of her eyes when she registered something soft touching her hand. She looked down and saw hair on her hand. Amanda's severed head was resting next to her hand.  
  
When Justin had come home that night, he had found her on the balcony sitting just as she was right now. She had started to tell him about the accident and Justin assumed it was losing a patient that had upset her so much. She *hated* losing patients. That seemed like the most likely suspect as to why she was so much more upset, losing the patient after talking to her and knowing she would live as Jhondie told him how she just sat there in the dust, stunned at what had just happened and how unfair it was. Then she turned those haunted eyes up to him.  
  
"But then I realized that I wasn't sitting on the ground," she had sniffed. "I was back in the car with a scalpel and...and," a sob broke into her words. "I wasn't thinking at all. I just moved. She had asked me to save her baby and no matter how horrified my mind was, I had already started cutting. A couple of minutes later I was pulling that baby from her body and got it to breathing and they rushed it to the hospital." Jhondie began staring at her hands again.  
  
"It was like my hands knew what to do even if I didn't. I've only seen two c-sections done before. Dr. Mayer looked at the body later and said that if Amanda hadn't been dead already when I started the procedure, she might have lived. Damn fine emergency job were his exact words. And I wasn't even thinking about what I was doing, not like when I'm in an operating room. I just did it."  
  
It wasn't losing a patient that had Jhondie so stunned. As much as she didn't like death, she had come to accept that it was a part of a doctor's life and was already building up a callous to it. What had stunned her was that she was beginning to really understand the power she was gaining. Being able to cut into a human body and repair the damage had been both frightening and exhilarating to Jhondie. At times she just didn't know how to cope with it.  
  
Justin had learned that she didn't always need to be talked to when she got like this. She needed to be held and talk herself out. Sometimes after the emotional comfort of talking and getting it out, she would want physical comfort as well. Taylor had actually resulted from one of those times. They hadn't planned on starting another child within a year of Hunter being born, but Jhondie had just been through the wringer with another difficult surgery and neither of them really thought about timing. But Taylor was such a bonus baby that neither of them were unhappy, though they had made sure after that there wouldn't be a fourth child.  
  
Still, it had been a long time since Justin had seen Jhondie like this. She was very confident in herself as a surgeon and it had been a long time since she had amazed herself. Justin sat down behind her and hugged her tightly. Jhondie turned her head against his chest, not at all surprised that he was there.  
  
"That bad?" he asked gently.  
  
"Oh my God, Justin," she half-sobbed. "I have no idea why he's alive. I really don't. I've sent to the morgue people that were less shredded than he was. Almost lost him once on the table and I still can't say how we got him back." She turned her whole body sideways so that she was pressed as tightly as possible against her husband.  
  
"Different when you know him?"  
  
"No...yes...in a way, but not really," Jhondie stammered out. "I wanted him to live more because I know him, but he was still a damaged body that I was going to repair too." She shivered. "But that was one body that was way beyond my skills. When I first saw him, I didn't think he would make it into surgery, much less through. If Shawna hadn't been there to advise, I don't think he would have made it at all."  
  
There was a long moment of silence. "Rich was in there with me and he totally blindsided me," she finally said in a tiny voice. "I knew it was going to come out, I just wasn't expecting it to in the middle of surgery."  
  
Justin let out a rather creative curse. "If he tries anything with the board, then I swear this hospital is going to be the laughingstock of the medical community once I get through with them," he swore angrily. It was rare that he would use the influence of "The Truth" for his own personal ends, but when it came to his wife and children, all gloves came off.  
  
"I don't think Rich is going to be a problem," Jhondie said before Justin could continue his rant. "He respects me too much as a surgeon. But if the rest of the staff can't work with me anymore, then I can't make them and I wouldn't expect the board to keep me as chief of a staff that hates me. As much as I hate to say it, I can see why they would have problems with me now."  
  
"You think things would be different somewhere else?" Justin asked. Maybe a new hospital would see her differently.  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"Maybe in California?" Justin asked softly. He knew that Jhondie hadn't really wanted to leave Los Angeles for New York. But Justin and Logan both knew that for "The Truth" to really grow, they needed a New York office to augment the Seattle one. Jhondie knew that Justin was the one that needed to head up the new office and was willing to move to New York so that he could. But the office was running well and there were plenty of senior managers that would be excellent to head it up, so if it was time to move back to LA for Jhondie, then so be it.  
  
"LA is the only place where a genetically engineered surgeon would be trendy," Jhondie replied, smiling up at Justin. She loved him all the more for the simple way that he would accept her needs and be willing to make sacrifices for her sake. She sighed. "But I do like it here now too and I don't want to get driven out of my hospital. I just don't know right now what's going to happen."  
  
Justin squeezed her. "I do. You're going to clean up and then let Janice see her husband before she starts climbing the walls. And then we all get to wait until Lon returns and can tell us what the hell happened."  
  
Jhondie leaned up and kissed him. "I love you so much."  
  
"Love you too, carina," Justin returned. "Now let me get out of here before someone starts screaming that there's some pervert in the women's room." Jhondie laughed and they both rose. The future was still unclear but at least they had each other and that was the only constant they needed. 


	12. Unclear Results

Lon drove back to the hospital, wishing above all that he had something better to report. None of what he had made any sense. It was impossible, as a matter of fact. Not highly improbably, actually completely and totally impossible. He didn't care who had said what and that included the diary that he found in the bus station locker.  
  
From the way that key had been hidden in Heather's purse, Lon thought that all of their real ID's must have been in there and maybe some clues as well pointing to why they had been in that motel faking an affair. That made sense, far more than the way it appeared. Cole having an affair actually made no sense at all. And having one with his niece of all people, well, that was beyond senseless in into just plain sick. Besides, Cole had not been acting lately like a man that was cheating on his wife.  
  
Lon knew all of those signs. In the months leading up to his divorce, Lon's then-wife had catalogued them to him over and over from articles in women's magazines. She told him that if he would admit to it, then they could go to a marriage counselor and work out the problems. Lon denied an affair, although later he wondered if it would have been better to make one up so that Vicki would have thought she was getting the truth. He couldn't tell her what was really going on with some of his odd behavior. It would have been too dangerous for her to know about Manticore and because he couldn't let her know, the bitterness and fighting had escalated and doomed their marriage. Cole and Janice hadn't been acting like that at all. Janice was one woman that would not play the happy wife when she was upset. And she had a highly developed sense of radar for being lied to. That was CIA training in action. She would have found out about an affair quickly and put a violent end to it.  
  
No, it just wasn't adding up. There was something he was missing. That was obvious, he just wished he knew what it was. All he knew for sure was that things were not as they seemed to be. The clerk at the motel had told the truth and the detective wasn't trying to cover up anything, Lon knew that. He also knew what he had found in the bag stuffed into the bus station locker, but that was adding to the confusion rather than sorting it out.  
  
A purple teddy bear, arms outstretched, with the words "I wuv you this much" written on it's belly sat on top of the objects in the backpack. It looked like something you'd win at a carnival or something like that. Wrapped in an old ratty looking blanket were some pictures that looked like they belonged to the "came with the frame" family, except that Heather was in two of them, but an odd looking Heather. In one picture, she was dressed in a ripped halter-top and short-shorts with a really wide belt. Her hair was all done up in these little rolls all over her head, making it look like a pincushion. And even when she was a teenager, she never wore thick black eyeliner like that with sparkles in her other makeup. Under the blanket, Lon found a notebook full of poorly done drawings of people and landscapes and then beneath that was a diary. The diary was purple, covered in sparkles and trimmed in bright pink fake fur.  
  
The diary started about six weeks before. From the way the first entry was, it seemed like she had other diaries and this was just the continuation. Lon started reading the first entry and his stomach dropped. She was talking about how sweet her new boyfriend was and that he was the best kisser ever. He had won her a purple teddy bear at the local fair and she didn't care that he was older. Older men knew how to treat a girl right. None of the "other junk" mattered either. They were in love and love conquered all.  
  
Lon really thought he was going to be sick. This was Heather's handwriting. He flipped through the diary and the handwriting remained consisted though she did use different pens and inks, obviously whatever she could find when she went to start the new entry. Lon knew he had to be missing something. After spending so many years investigating crimes, his nerves were screaming at him that he was missing something crucial, but he couldn't tell what it was. As much as he didn't want to risk his life, he was going to have to confess everything to the person that knew Heather and Cole the best and hope Alicia could see what he couldn't. He pulled into a parking space and took a deep breath. This was going to be ugly.  
  
Inside the hospital, Xander had dismissed the CIA guard now that everyone was here. The cleaner team downstairs had done a proper job and although a few people were not happy about having pieces of clothing forcibly removed from them, there were no free samples of transgenic DNA to be had for the black market. Jhondie had told Xander they would discuss such later. But Xander at least didn't have to worry about Heather's protection. There were enough people in her room that anyone with ill intent would reconsider quickly. Since only one person at a time could be with Janice in the ICU, one or two people had stayed down there and the rest had gravitated into Heather's room.  
  
Jhondie had come in to check on Heather. She shot a glare at Liz and Cameron, who had arrived within an hour of each other, but they just smiled back with infectious sweetness. Jhondie was not happy with those two. They had come in about an hour before and after checking up on Heather, decided they wanted to see Cole. The doctors and nurses in the ICU, after a small request from their chief, hadn't noticed that Janice was staying slightly more than fifteen minutes at a time. She was in fact, in there the whole hour, every hour, and someone else was coming in there with her for ten minutes and then being shooed out. Of course, waiting was simply not an option for the twins.  
  
Brandt was kind enough to stay in the waiting room as they casually picked the security code from one of the nurse's heads. When nobody was looking, they both walked in, washing their hands at the sink as if they had done this a hundred times before and not gotten it from the nurse's mind. A nursing assistant questioned their presence and they managed to convince her that they were consultants that Dr. Carter had sent to examine the special patient they had. The assistant had thought it was odd considering how young those two looked, but with all of the strange events and rumors circulating, she could believe them. And they seemed to know what they were talking about and even where the patient was, so she assumed they must be genuine.  
  
She did mention it to the charge nurse though since Marvel liked to know everything that was happening on her ward. Not telling Marvel was pretty much bringing hell and damnation upon ones self. The large black lady was referred to as "Momma" by much of the nursing staff. Even the doctors briefed her. And once she heard about the "consultants", she immediately called for some verification. She had been working with Dr. Carter since before the woman became chief of staff and there was no way the Dr. Carter she knew would have consultants show up and not introduce them to the staff on the ward. Yeah, Marvel had heard the rumors flying around and people were starting to say that Dr. Carter didn't just know them. She was one of them. So what? The woman was a damn fine doctor and had gotten the nurses a nice raise since becoming chief and rumor was that she was working on another one this year. That rumor was far more interesting to Marvel than rumors about Dr. Carter's origins.  
  
When Marvel called, Dr. Carter said that she would be down in a minute. From the tone of her voice, she wasn't terribly surprised at this stunt, but she wasn't happy about it at all. Marvel offered to kick them out, but Dr. Carter just said that she knew Marvel's job was hard enough without subjecting her to those two. Marvel had been through plenty of chiefs before in her twenty-two years in nursing and few would have bothered to handle a problem like this themselves. Marvel was good friends with the union rep for the nurses at the hospital and if the board tried to get rid of Dr. Carter for something silly like a strange blood type, then the Nurse's Union was going to have a say in the matter.  
  
The twins had known that they wouldn't have long with Cole. Ten minutes, max. They got seven. Even with their backs turned, and not even reading the minds of the people near the door, they could feel their aunt's glower when she arrived. Jhondie didn't say a word. She took one hand from her coat pocket and pointed towards the door. They shot Janice a parting smile and quickly scampered out of the ICU. With most of their aunts, they would have tried some begging and pleading, but Jhondie probably had a syringe full of something vile that would make them regret breaking the rules.  
  
Once outside of the ICU, Cameron and Liz tried to protest that they were only in there for a minute and they weren't bothering anyone. Liz pointed out that Brandt had even waited outside so there would be as little disturbance as possible. Jhondie waited as they made their excuses, thinking about Zack and Alicia's patience levels. The fact that these two made it past puberty was nothing short of a miracle.  
  
"All I can say," Jhondie finally said very calmly when they had wound down, "is that next time, you won't hear me coming." She turned on her heel and left them to contemplate the possibilities of her statement. They decided that Heather's room was far safer and headed back upstairs.  
  
Now almost everyone was in and hanging around Heather's room when Lon finally came back from his investigations. Shawna, Cray and Cyra were downstairs, waiting for their turn to stay with Janice and Cole. Cyra had just spent the last hour on the phone with her mother and grandmother, frantically trying to convince them that they did not need to come to New York. The last thing that anyone needed was for those two drama-queens to show up. It was going to be enough of a circus as it was without them screaming to any tabloid that would listen that they had the inside scoop on the family. And then when they tried that, things would get even more complicated when one of Cole's brothers got pissed enough and tossed Mom and/or Grandma off of the roof. Cyra had contemplated the good in that since it would save a lot of future embarrassment, but in the end, it would just make family holidays more tense than usual.  
  
When Lon walked in the room, everyone stared at him hungrily, waiting for some kind of information. Lon swallowed, wondering what he was supposed to say when answers were the one thing he didn't have at all. He glanced at his niece, so frail in the hospital bed and wondered for the thousandth time what she was going to say in explanation over all of this.  
  
"Tell me you got to Ty," Lon finally said to Xander.  
  
"He's out with HRT on maneuvers. They're practicing assaults in the woods, so he's out of cell range and the ones still there don't know exactly where he went. He likes to surprise his people." Xander shrugged. "So that's why he's not responding. My guys are going to find him and let him know what happened."  
  
"What don't you want to tell me?" Alicia asked, correctly reading her brother's expression.  
  
"Is there somewhere else we can talk?" Lon asked Jhondie, knowing that if an explosion were to occur, it would be best to have Heather in another room. Jhondie nodded and led them down the hall to an empty room. Lon followed with Zack, Alicia, Daniel and Xander close behind. Jhondie made sure the nurse intercom was off and then they waited.  
  
"There are some really big holes and nothing is exactly making sense," Lon began hesitantly. He had been less nervous last year making a presentation directly to the director of the FBI. "What I know for sure is that they were checked into the motel under an assumed name with fake ID's and that they had been there for a week. It appeared that they were about to leave when the shooting occurred."  
  
Now for the ugly part. "For some reason," he continued, "they were putting on a show as if they were...they were acting...I know this is wrong, but..."  
  
"Lon!" both Alicia and Xander yelled at the same time. "Just say it," Alicia added.  
  
"Witnesses state that they were at the motel conducting an affair," Lon blurted. "They were seen acting in a licentious manner towards each other on more than one occasion and there was also another woman involved. This morning, this other woman got drunk, broke into the room, called Cole a cheating bastard and then opened fire. Heather was able to return fire and fatally wounded the shooter on the scene." As he looked at the disbelieving stares, he wanted to remind them there was no reason to kill the messenger.  
  
"Cole and Heather?" Alicia questioned, the edges of her mouth twitching upward in a grin of absolute horror. "No, that wouldn't happen. End of story. I *know* you found evidence to show that one or more of the witnesses were lying, correct?"  
  
Lon looked so miserable for a moment that in any other situation, it would have been hysterical. "I found this," he said, handing over the backpack. "It was in a bus station locker."  
  
Everyone in the room was more confused then ever at seeing the contents of the bag. Alicia and Zack had no idea who the people in the picture were and even as a teenager, Heather never went around looking like such trailer trash. Alicia opened up the diary and began scanning the pages, becoming visibly ill the more pages she flipped through as Zack read over her shoulder.  
  
"This..." she managed to get out, wanting to say that it was a forgery despite the fact it was so perfectly Heather's handwriting. Whoever had written this even managed to duplicate the way Heather wrote the letter 's' with it slumping forward, touching the letters in front.  
  
"This is a relief," Zack finished for her. Alicia looked up at her husband in absolute shock. He smiled slightly at his wife. "If this was real, then I would have to undo all of Jhondie's hard work." It was rare that he managed to totally render Alicia speechless and in a different situation, he would enjoy it. But this diary was not right. One didn't spend years on the run from the government and not be able to tell real personal writings from faked ones. If he hadn't been able to, then he would have believed his other brothers and sisters to have been captured a dozen times over.  
  
"That is her handwriting," Alicia said.  
  
"I know," Zack replied. "But ignore the words and just listen to it." He took the diary from her and began to read an entry. "September 22nd. Sunrise at the beach totally rules! I know, I know, how overdone, but still, when he had that bottle of wine out there, I totally melted. And he didn't mind me getting all melty if you know what I mean, ha ha. He is the absolute bestest in the world and I don't care about *her*. It's her fault that she let him get away from her. Of course he's going to want me more. She's a yucky old lady and I'm hot & fresh."  
  
At that point Daniel started laughing so hard that Zack couldn't continue. "I see what you mean," he finally snickered out. "That's not Heather."  
  
Alicia looked relived as well. "She didn't sound quite that...silly girly even when she was fifteen. She certainly doesn't speak like that now." The others finally realized what Heather's parents and brother meant. It had been a very long time since Heather came close to sounding like the silly teenager that had written that diary.  
  
"You never found any real ID?" Xander asked. Lon shook his head. "Cole hadn't mentioned lately being on a major assignment, but sometimes I just don't know with him. I'll check with some people and see."  
  
"That still doesn't explain why Heather was involved," Alicia mused. "How often does the military stoop to a joint effort with civilian outfits?"  
  
Xander nodded, knowing what she meant. They had to deal with a lot of that crap back at Manticore. "The military will tolerate the CIA and the NSA if they have to. But it's hell even trying to get them to consider the BATF or FBI or an organization of that nature."  
  
"Which leads us back to waiting for one of them to wake up and explain what was going on," Zack said firmly. Speculations were just going to take them in circles and waste time and resources. They had to focus on the top priority and that was Heather and Cole's safety while they were in the hospital.  
  
Justin had been able to handle all of the reporters and news agencies. Nobody had thought twice about him being there considering that the original expose on transgenics and Manticore had been a "Truth" exclusive. Justin had talked to Mike and told him that right now he would get hurt if he tried to demand an interview or a statement. And getting in to see the injured would cause his lifespan to be greatly reduced. Mike said he wanted some exclusives once the crisis was over, and that seemed more than fair. The important thing was that there wasn't going to be a media frenzy over all of this, no matter how many news sharks were in the water, since they couldn't get any access into the hospital. Making sure that Heather and Cole recovered, that was what was important. 


	13. Settling In

As night came and the regular visiting hours drew to a close, Jhondie had to make a few concessions and a couple of outright threats to get everyone out of the hospital. They all wanted to be around when Heather woke up, but the last thing the poor girl needed was to get pounced by a dozen relatives. Jhondie said that Alicia could stay the first half of the night and Zack could come in and relieve her later. Janice was going to be allowed to stay with Cole, but despite her protests that she was fine, she had to get a few hours of rest. Jhondie's office had a comfortable enough couch that was to be used or else. Xander protested that Cole would be unguarded while Janice was sleeping. As much as Jhondie hated to do it, Cameron was allowed to stick around to help Janice. Liz tried to talk her aunt into letter her stay with Heather as well, but that nearly led to bloodshed. Everyone else was booted out to assorted homes until morning.  
  
Daniel and Cyra had Zack, Liz, Brandt and Lon come home with them. Tanya was going to be bouncing from one doting relative to the next for hours. Xander, Shawna and Cray opted to take Jhondie and Justin up on their offer and stay at their apartment. It was closer to the hospital and best of all; it would be peaceful there after the wild events of the day. Justin had talked to Logan earlier, and he and Max were going to be in the next day, but they would be using the hotel suite that "The Truth" had on permanent reserve. It was hard for Zack to leave his daughter, but Alicia promised that she wouldn't fight when it came time to switch shifts. If she would live up to that promise still remained to be seen.  
  
Jhondie did a final check on the hospital and then went back up to Heather's room before leaving for the night. "Holding up?" she asked Alicia quietly.  
  
Alicia gave her a tight smile. "I just want to know what happened," she said.  
  
Jhondie couldn't imagine what this must be like. None of her three had ever been seriously injured before. There had been the usual kid things, one didn't have two active boys and a ballerina for a daughter and not get a few scrapes and bruises along the way, but none of them had ever spent the night in a hospital before. Well, not as a patient at any rate. Jhondie was grateful that her children had chosen less dangerous professions. Jamie was an architect, Hunter had started his final year of medical school this fall and Taylor's star was rising in the ballet world. Jhondie thought that she would have long been driven crazy with worry if hers were in the same fields as Alicia and Zack's.  
  
"You can't protect them forever," Jhondie said, understanding instinctively where it was hurting the most. "And this one especially would get out of any closet you tried to lock her in."  
  
Alicia tried to smile, but couldn't quite make it. "You try and teach them how to take care of themselves and when they're out there in the world, you think they'll be okay. And then your whole world can crash with one phone call."  
  
"She's a tough little thing," Jhondie reminded her. "Remember when she was born? No matter what, she finds a way to pull through."  
  
Now Alicia did manage to smile. Heather had been born almost a month early while Zack and Alicia had been in Los Angeles. It was mostly because of being insanely hormonal, but the gloom of January in Seattle had been just too much for Alicia to handle and she had insisted on being somewhere warm for a few weeks. Zack finally relented and they went to LA. There was a week of beautiful weather and then a few days of heavy downpours. Jhondie had bribed Kayla into watching Daniel and took Alicia and Zack out for a drive on the cliffs one afternoon once the rain had finally stopped when a landslide occurred, blocking the road. Rain had started pouring once more just to make things more fun. They had called for some help and that was when Heather decided she was bored where she was and it was time to make her appearance in the world.  
  
Jhondie had participated in delivering a few children, but that was when she was in medical school doing her OB rotation. And she had given birth before, but it was a whole different experience being on the receiving end. It wasn't the best situation being under an unstable land mass and the way out was blocked and the woman you were with was in labor. But she was a doctor and doctors were supposed to be able to handle these kinds of situations. It didn't matter that the ink was barely dry on her MD.  
  
Jhondie called the hospital where she was an intern at and got an OB on the phone. There were several houses along the cliffs that had been abandoned since the Pulse. A few had been swept down in previous slides and never cleaned up. Jhondie knew where one of those was and realized that a place where the land had already slid might be safer than where the land was still supposedly solid. Part of the roof was still intact to keep out the rain, but the problem was that the roads were blocked and there wasn't a safe place for life flight to come in with the weather being as foul as it was.  
  
It was amazing how survival skills they had been taught at Manticore could be adapted over to this situation. Jhondie had a medical bag with her in the car and there was enough stuff left in the wreckage to make due. The OB doctor she was on the phone with thought she was nuts using some of the things they came up with, but in the end it worked. Alicia's labor was fast and hard and despite the helicopter coming as soon as it could, Heather was born in those squalid ruins that had once been a multi-million dollar home. The helicopter had gotten there within twenty minutes of Heather's birth and they were taken to the hospital and pronounced to all be in remarkable condition. Despite being small, Heather was obviously alert and healthy and they were able to take her home when Alicia left the hospital.  
  
So many years had passed since that day and family still managed to keep everyone on their toes. No matter what happened, just when you thought nothing else could surprise you, they found something completely new and unexpected to do.  
  
"Thank you for everything," Alicia finally said to Jhondie. "We'll be fine here." She knew that Jhondie had to be tired as well and looking forward to getting some rest.  
  
"The nurses at the station have my direct numbers," Jhondie said. "If anything happens, you can call or tell them and they'll have me here in a few minutes."  
  
"I will," Alicia promised and then Jhondie left. Alicia had to admit that she was feeling much calmer now that everyone was gone. The thought of watching TV was uninteresting to her and she sat there quietly as she had for hours when she was on a surveillance mission, watching closely, barely even breathing. Heather stirred a few times, acting like she was trying to wake up, but would fall back asleep again. Alicia brushed back some hair that had gotten into her daughter's face and wondered yet again what had happened and why. Why all of the deception and going through such a charade? And why didn't anyone have a clue that it was going on?  
  
At least Jon was going to be there soon. He had called and said that he got a special flight. When he had gotten to the airport, he found out that the next flight to New York wouldn't be for another nine hours. Not good enough. He called Janna. Janna, upon hearing about her cousin's injury, said she would have the family jet make a stop off to get him and then they were going to be in New York. Antonio didn't want Janna to make such an exhausting trip since four days ago they had discovered that she was pregnant. He was also learning though that keeping her down was roughly like trying to control a small tornado. The best he could do was go with her and make sure she didn't get too wildly involved. Alicia was glad that Jon was coming in. Heather would be very happy to see him. She missed him so much when they were separated.  
  
Alicia's stomach growled and she realized that now that the tension had dissipated somewhat, she was starting to get hungry. She had eaten breakfast that morning, but for some reason food had not been a priority that day. Despite her normal eating habits, she couldn't even think about touching anything on the flight over and here she had been too concerned with Heather and Cole to consider eating anything. The hospital restaurants were closed, but there were some snack machines in the lobby down the hall. Alicia debated for a moment and then slid out of the room silently. She would be back in less than five minutes.  
  
It took longer than that. Laurie, the nurse that was supposed to be taking care of Heather at night, stopped Alicia to ask her some questions concerning Heather's care. Alicia knew that some questions were to be expected, but she wasn't expecting such imbecilic and asinine garbage to be spewing from the nurse's mouth. It was like she had ignored all of the legitimate stories in "The Truth" about transgenics and was going on the trash she had read in tabloids. Really, questions about medications would be understandable, but asking if a special diet was needed seemed a little extreme. Alicia could only hope that Cole had more intelligent care in the ICU. She finally broke away from the nurse and went back into Heather's room.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
In the ICU, Janice knew that she was supposed to get some sleep up in Jhondie's office, but that was a joke. Sleep? She was supposed to sleep? Her husband was lying in a hospital bed with tubes and wires running through him and she was supposed to run off for a nap before knowing for sure that he was going to wake up and be well? That was a sad joke if she had ever heard one before.  
  
She wanted to believe what they were saying that Cole's body would regenerate and repair itself good as new. But that was a little hard to believe right now. He was so pale. They had transfused a few more pints of blood into him after surgery and he was still pale and still. Since they had met, she had never seen him this still, even when he slept. There was always animation there no matter how quiet he was being. And now she had a sickening feeling she knew what it would be like to see him dead.  
  
There had been people in and out all day. Nurses had come in and checked monitors, saying things to her. Cole's siblings had come in and sat with her for a while, so had Cyra and Liz and Cameron. Janice supposed they had said comforting things, but she couldn't recall a single thing that any of them had said. She knew for sure Jhondie had come in several times and said that his vitals were looking good, but the only thing Janice wanted to hear right now was the sound of Cole's voice.  
  
And though nobody had directly told her, she was well aware of what was going on with Lon's investigations. They had been talking about something once when she had to leave to go to the bathroom and they all shut up when she came out. That was the worst thing to do to a CIA agent, especially one as incurably nosy as she was. She made it seem like she was back in the ICU and listened in. Cole and Heather? For maybe a half-second she wondered and then dismissed it. There were things about Cole that they simply didn't know. He didn't give his heart lightly and when he did, he didn't take it back. Of course he loved Heather. She was his niece. But since it was Lon, Cameron and Cray discussing it, they couldn't fathom something that a woman would have realized immediately. Heather was very friendly to Janice and even up to the last time they had seen each other, two weeks before, had there been the slightest attempt by Heather to say anything negative or make the least bit of trouble. There was no way the "other woman" could spend time with her lover and his wife and not say or do something out of jealousy.  
  
Janice picked up Cole's hand, pressing it against her lips as she tried to keep from crying again today. Tears weren't going to do any good right now. And then for the first time his fingers jerked, wrapping around her hand.  
  
"Cole?" Janice said eagerly, standing. She touched his face lightly, not letting go of his hand for a second. "I'm here," she said. "Please, baby, come back to me."  
  
Cole's eyelids fluttered a few times and then finally opened. He blinked twice, slowly, as if heavy weights were on his eyelashes. Janice had to bite back a sob of relief. He looked dazed, confused as to where he was and what was going on, but he was awake. His eyes met hers and she could tell that memory was starting to fall back into place.  
  
Her fingers touched his mouth. "Don't try to talk," she said quickly. She smiled, her lips trembling. "You have a tube in your throat right now helping you breathe." He blinked again and as much as he was trying to stay awake, it was obvious he was utterly exhausted. A nurse was walking past and Janice glanced up at her.  
  
"Wanda," she said sharply, picking up a command tone rarely heard outside of the CIA. Wanda stopped, going into the cubicle quickly. "Dr. Carter wanted to be notified when he woke up," Janice said, her statement coming out an order.  
  
"I'll give her a call," Wanda promised, going to the desk quickly. Normally she would have finished her rounds first, but after what Carolyn had told her earlier, there was no way she wanted to get in the way of those people. They were scary. She knew that she should go back in there, but with all of those people in and out, including the dark-haired one that made threats against Dr. Ricker, she was frightened. Marvel heard her excuses and shook her head. What she would give for some good help now and not frightened little girls.  
  
At Cole's bed, Janice knew him well enough to know that he would not be able to calm down until he knew what was going on. "You're at St. Luke's," she said. "Heather's here too and she's fine." Her words were speeding up and trembled with delayed hysteria. "Jhondie says you're doing pretty well. She's going to be back here soon to see how you're doing. And everyone's in New York now..."  
  
Cole touched her face when she had a hard time continuing, wiping at the tears that were silently coursing down her face. His hand slid around to the back of her neck, tugging her down so that their foreheads were touching. Janice almost completely lost it right then and there. He was the one lying in a hospital bed on the verge of dying and still trying to comfort her.  
  
"Now there's none of that until we get him to a private room," Marvel scolded cheerfully, making Janice jump. Marvel knew from long years of experience when to be solemn and when to be cheery. "Now you slide over, missus, and let me look at the mister."  
  
Janice parted slightly, not letting go of Cole's hand while Marvel went over the machine's readouts and checked Cole. "Dr. Carter will be here in a little bit," she finally said and looked directly at Cole. "You're doing much better, but you need to rest and not get all worked up over anything, you hear me?" She smiled at Janice. "And that goes for you too, missus."  
  
Janice tiredly returned the smile. "There's a young man in the waiting room, Cameron. Can you ask him to run upstairs and let Alicia know Cole's awake?"  
  
Marvel nodded. "As long as he doesn't try sneaking back in here."  
  
"I think Dr. Carter put the fear of God in him earlier." Janice didn't know what Jhondie had said to them earlier, but neither of them tried to pull another stunt like that again. Marvel left and Cole gripped Janice's fingers tighter getting her attention again. He looked like he was fighting going back to sleep.  
  
"It's okay," Janice said. "You need to rest. I'll be right here when you wake up, I promise."  
  
Cole painfully shook his head slightly, frustration coloring his expression. "Cole, you can't talk right now," Janice reminded him. "It can wait until Jhondie can take out the tube in your throat. Just rest."  
  
It was hard to tell if he was more frustrated that he couldn't just say what he wanted to or that he was fighting to stay awake long enough to do it. His eyes drifted shut, opening slightly as he pulled his hand from Janice. His first two fingers pointed up, slightly parted with the thumb touching between them. Then the four fingers curled down to touch his palm, thumb curling against the tips of his other fingers. He paused for a second, the strain of even this much effort almost too much, before leaving the first three fingers down, stretching out his thumb and pinky so that they were pointing in opposite directions. Janice was totally confused for a moment and then it hit her when he repeated the first movement.  
  
"K," she said softly. She glanced at his face and knew that's what he meant. He made the other motions again. "E...Y. K...E...Y. Key?" Cole again took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "What about a key?" she asked, knowing instinctively that it must have to do something with why he had been shot. "Cole?"  
  
But his eyes were closed; sleep finally claiming him once more.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
On the seventh floor, Laurie knew that she wasn't supposed to be bothering the family of Miss. Raleigh in 728. That's what Dr. Carter had said at any rate. But after only three years of nursing, she had long since concluded that doctors knew plenty about medicine and how to heal the person, but absolutely diddly when it came to patient care. Doctors breezed in on their rounds, spent five or ten minutes with the patient and then breezed on out. The rest of the time it was up to the nurses to know what needed to be done. She knew precious few doctors that could handle a patient calling every five minutes because he was cranky about bedsores while another one was pitching a fit because she wanted orange jell-o like her roommate, not lime.  
  
So that was why she ignored Dr. Carter's order. That young woman was obviously going to need special care, and there was only one way to find out what kind of care was needed. Her funny little family wasn't exactly forthcoming, so it was up to her to ask. Nobody would get upset over a few simple little questions.  
  
Laurie heard Mrs. Raleigh go into the room and then say her daughter's name. Oh, good. She must be awake in there. Dr. Carter said to call as soon as she was. Laurie picked up the phone and started dialing Dr. Carter's cell phone. She only punched the first two numbers when a blurred figure came out of that room faster than the human eye could follow. One second Laurie was standing inside the nurses' station and the next she was slammed against the wall, and iron hand clamping around her throat. Laurie's feet dangled off of the floor as she struggled to draw in a breath.  
  
Dazed as Laurie was, she could clearly hear the scream, "YOU BITCH! WHERE"S MY DAUGHTER?" 


	14. Where the Key Is

Waking up had been a gradual process for Heather. She thought her mother was there, but she wasn't sure. It could have been a dream. The black fog finally receded enough where she could sit up and think. It was still dark though. No, not plain dark, nighttime. It was night. Oh. Night. So late. They...no, she...it was just she now.  
  
The memory of the long beep that heralded Cole's death burned into Heather's mind, making the pain in her arm and shoulder weak in comparison. She had to bite back a sob. He was gone. She wanted to scream and deny, but something made of out steel deep inside of her told her that denial was useless. He was gone and there was only one way to make it right. He was not going to have died in vain. Finish, she thought numbly. Have to finish.  
  
Heather looked around; her head feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds. The dark wasn't affecting her vision in the slightest though as she fought to keep her mind clear and focused on what she needed to do. A gym bag was on the floor next to the chair beside her bed. She knew whom that belonged to. Heather wanted to wait for her mother to come back in, but she couldn't face her. How was she supposed to apologize to her mother for killing her favorite brother and then ask for help? No. She started this; she was going to finish it. No matter what. The key. All for the key.  
  
Heather pulled the IV out of her hand, wincing slightly. She stumbled out of the bed, her normally graceful reflexes deserting her as the world swam around. She went to grab the edge of the bed for balance and sickeningly sharp pain jagged down her arm and across her chest, biting through the dizziness. Okay. Lesson learned. Do not use the arm.  
  
Heather opened the bag and thanked God for Mom's background. In one gym bag were the preparations for a small war. There was no way that Heather was going to try and get a shirt on, but there were sweatpants and on the back of the chair, a long jacket. She wasn't sure if she was moving slow or fast, the medication in her body combining with pain to make most of her senses totally unreliable. She pulled on the sweatpants and slid her good arm through the jacket, wrapping it around her body. It was a little small, like most of Mom's clothes, but since she didn't have to button it, it would do. The boot-style slippers in the bag weren't exactly shoes, but they covered her feet well enough, though tight.  
  
There was a small hidden pouch in the inner part of the bag that Heather undid and pulled out cash. Always there, always prepared. That was Mom. Heather slid out of the room so quietly that the nurse in the station who was crouched down as she did some restocking didn't hear the movement at all. She plodded down the hall, getting into the elevator as her mother was answering the last couple of questions for nurse Laurie.  
  
The cabbie in front of the hospital was a little surprised to see a little redhead come out of the hospital and climb into his cab. He was a little irritated as well. Sure, outside of the ER was an easy enough place to pick up a fare, but he was due to knock off in ten minutes. That's why he was at the front of the hospital and not by the ER. Since the wife had gone to the night shift at the diner, as long as he got home in time, he was actually coming home to a hot dinner instead of reheated leftovers and he was looking forward to the roast she had taken out when he left home that day.  
  
The cabbie looked in the rearview mirror and decided this girl wasn't going to be going for a ride in his cab. Sure, a kid looking this drugged wasn't unusual coming out of the ER, but she had come out of the front entrance. Mental patient, he decided. It happened from time to time. And then the girl pushed a hundred dollar bill through the slot. It wasn't Monopoly money or a piece of paper with numbers scribbled on it. Mr. Franklin himself was grinning knowingly at the cabbie and the cabbie grinned back.  
  
"Where d'ya wanna go?" the cabbie asked and the girl tiredly gave him an address. He debated again for a second. That was not an area to drop off a little thing like her all doped up. Money was money, but the man had two daughters of his own. "You sure?" he asked. "You looking like I should be dropping you off, not picking you up, you know?"  
  
She smiled weakly. "I broke my arm," she said. "I have friends waiting for me there and they're going to get real worried soon. That's enough for a fare, right?"  
  
"That and then some." Great. Kid wasn't a native. Not with that accent. The cabbie had seen this story a million times and wondered who had broken her arm. She was very pretty under all the stress lines. Probably came here to be a model and ended up with the wrong set.  
  
"Good. Rest is yours if you can get me there quick. Don't want to worry anyone." The cabbie sighed, knowing that no speech in the world was going to help her until she decided to help herself. Wasn't his business in any anyways. That's what social working kinds of people were there for. He pulled away smoothly from the hospital's entrance, heading towards the address she wanted to be taken to.  
  
Upstairs on the seventh floor, all hell was breaking loose, but Heather didn't know that. She let her head fall back against the seat, her energy reserves extinguished. He thinks I'm a junkie needing a fix, Heather thought about the cabbie. Maybe a hooker going back to her pimp. He wasn't too far off on that thought. She had sold her body and going back to the man she had done it for. Not sex, no, but oh, there were worse things than selling your body for sex. There was...there was...  
  
Victoria.  
  
Poor Victoria. Even now there was room for pity. Victoria didn't know what was happening. But she had something they needed. When Heather had suggested the plan to Cole, even he remarked how oddly cold-blooded it was for her. Heather had just shrugged and said that the ends justified the means. And couldn't it get fixed later? Wipe it out and make like it never happened? Cole thought about it and yes, it was possible. With some pharmaceutical help it would be pretty easy. And since they knew about her and alcohol, the set up was too perfect.  
  
So they had done what they did and it was time to pay for their sins. They would have fixed it. That was the plan. But they had been surprised with what they could get from Victoria. Neither of them had realized what she had in her. And then it was theirs and time was critical. They had to make it look like an impetuous thing, like they had run off together in a moment of foolish passion. And then they could get there early, make the switch and nobody would be any wiser. The key was the key and it would make a lot of things happen once that lock was undone.  
  
Heather could remember Cole's laughter at the room. He was so glad he wasn't going to have to live in a mess after tomorrow. Keeping everything just right was critical, but it was driving them both crazy to have those nasty cartons of take-out sitting on the dresser. She didn't want to pack those rags she was referring to as clothing, but this had to be done right or else. There wasn't going to be a second chance at this. Oddly enough, it wasn't the watchers. It was Victoria's wailing that was going to have to be dead on and if she thought something was odd, then Dominick was going to suspect as well.  
  
They both heard the car come screeching into the parking lot, but ignored it. There were lots of tires screeching in and out of this place. It seemed to be a hotspot of extramarital trysts. Lots of people screaming they'd kill someone as tires peeled out and a lover escaped being shot by the skin of his or her teeth. Then there was a knock at their door. The maid had been in the other room. She must have been there to clean. That was what they assumed when Cole opened the door.  
  
Everything moved in slow motion at that point. Heather had been looking down into her purse making sure the key to the bus station locker was still hidden in the lining. Her phone was still in hand. The first gun shot. Cole being thrown backwards. Victoria screaming as she stepped into the room, her gun swinging towards Heather. Cole throwing himself in between Victoria and Heather. More shots. Grabbing her gun from the bedside drawer. Cole falling. Pain in her arm and shoulder. One more shot. Victoria flying back, half her head missing. The air misty with fine blood droplets. Everywhere. Blood everywhere...  
  
"Lady?" The cabbie's voice brought Heather back to the present. "Hey, lady, we're here." He looked around. Sure, this wasn't his business, but she was just a kid. "You know, this ain't the best area at night. You sure you don't want to go somewhere else?"  
  
"It's okay," Heather said softly as she painfully got out of the cab. The cabbie watched her walk between two buildings and disappear into the dark before he drove off. He thought that maybe he should call the hospital anyways, but then there was the matter of his tip. That was one nice tip she had just given him and he earned it by doing exactly what she wanted. He didn't need no bleeding heart trying to take it from him, claiming coercion or something. He was just trying to make a living after all. Nah...it was time to go home and have dinner and not show this bill to the wife.  
  
Heather was grateful that the cabbie didn't try to "rescue" her. Rescue. Wouldn't that have been a comedy? She stumbled onward, hoping nobody would try to mug her or anything. She didn't have any reserves left for defense. Hell, she was going to be lucky to get where she was going. But from the way she was stumbling more than walking, any observers would think she had just spent her last two dollars on cheap booze and had nothing left for them.  
  
The correct door finally loomed ahead and Heather practically fell into it. She hit it limply a few times with her good arm, gritting her teeth against the pain that motion was causing through the rest of her body. Her hand was damp. Blood. She was bleeding again. It didn't matter. There was a long moment of silence and Heather thought she was going to start crying. What if it wasn't that night, but the one after? What if she was a day off? No. They had to be there. Had to be...  
  
The door almost flew open, yanking Heather forward into the dark interior. Strong arms caught her before she could hit the ground. She could sense more than see the cluster of men around her all of a sudden. Her vision cleared and she was looking into the dark brown eyes of the man holding her up.  
  
"Heather?" Special Agent Tynell Chambers gasped. "Oh dear God, what happened? Where's Cole?"  
  
She was fighting to stay conscious, but at the mention of his name, a wordless agony gutted her, forcing out a small sob. Ty could see those ice- blue eyes glaze with tears, pain echoing out of them. His stomach clinched. He knew. Nothing else needed to be said. He knew.  
  
"Victoria," she whispered finally. "She...and Cole...before I could do anything, she..." a sob broke through her words, ending any chance of a coherent explanation.  
  
The other men in the room knew exactly why she was upset. Their knowledge was the reason they had been selected for this assignment. Two days after Daniel's article had hit the stand, an extremely bad situation for HRT had developed. Months before, a very wealthy and powerful man in Africa had gotten bored with collecting the usual things. Nothing was interesting or unique enough to suit him anymore. He wanted something none of his friends could boast of having. He chose to collect members of law enforcement. One person representing each organization would do. He had been at it for months, picking up a London Bobby, a member of the NYPD and a Beijing police officer. Seeing them in uniform in their glass prisons was too thrilling to ever think of giving up.  
  
His next sight was on the FBI, specifically a member of the elite HRT. A hostage situation was faked and led to five members of HRT being captured. Unfortunately, the truly unique specimen, the only female, was killed in the capture. The collector's men were shooting at her and she fell off of the roof of a four-story building. They had looked over the edge and she was face down in the concrete. Must be dead, they decided. Their bad.  
  
Heather would have called for backup and gone by procedure. But the boat bringing the collector was there and he was going to select someone and take him away. There wasn't time for backup. There was only time for her to go all-out. Inside, the collector was trying to decide and not a soul expected the "dead" agent to come crashing through a skylight, dropping thirty feet onto concrete and landing lightly. Three men aimed guns at her, but a casual glance in their direction and all three of them were off their feet, crashing violently into the cinderblock walls behind them. That got some of the remaining henchmen running for the safety of the boat and the rest quickly learned how good Heather was at hand-to-hand combat. The collector got away, but what the other HRT agents inside never knew was that a young CIA agent wondered many times over the course of his later career why he was sent out to sink a yacht in the middle of the ocean with all hands on board. But when you get a direct order from Xander Brickman, it's a matter of do and never question why.  
  
Later, the four HRT agents that had witnessed Heather in action were briefed on what they saw. They had all read the article in "The Truth" and more than suspected. Heather confirmed it. In a way it soothed some male egos as to why a woman passed the requirements and could beat out some of them in physical tests. Heather held her tongue and didn't mention she could beat them all if she wanted. But they did want to know if Ty knew. Ty had thought many times over the last ten months what would happen if Heather were found out. He had debated on all the possibilities, but never knew what he would do. Now it was decision time. When he was asked if he knew, he told them that he hadn't known until after she had completed HRT training, but yes, he had known since then. They wanted to know if there were any other transgenics in the Bureau. Heather refused to answer. Ty finally answered and said that there were a total of three including himself and Heather.  
  
That admission had been far more startling than knowing about Heather. They had known Ty for years and never suspected he was anything but an above-average person and leader. Heather supposed them knowing she wasn't a "freak" and was as normal as Ty helped them deal with it. And since it was out among a very select group in HRT, Heather didn't have to hold back anymore when she was with just them. It certainly made things more interesting. And now, when it came time for this assignment, those four agents were the natural selection since Cole was also to be involved.  
  
Heather could hear the noises of sympathy being made around her, which coming from men consisted more of a few obscenities followed with, "sorry, that really sucks". She was being laid back, a pillow of sorts under her head. And then she heard Ty say that they were going to have to abort. Heather's eyes flew open and she gripped Ty fiercely, both physically and kinetically.  
  
"No," she snarled, her words separated by painful gasps as she continued, "He didn't die for nothing, Ty. We finish it."  
  
"Heather, you two were the only way around it," Ty said more calmly than he really felt. Of course he wanted to finish! He had lost his brother and he wanted to salvage something from that, but there was no way he was going to send four more men to their deaths. The odds of success were impossible now. They were going to have to figure out something else.  
  
"We were leaving early," Heather choked out. "Victoria came because we were leaving early."  
  
Ty blinked. Cole risk a timeline? Unheard of. Simply unthinkable.  
  
Everything was getting blurry and gray again, but Heather forced out the words. "We could leave early because we had the key."  
  
The oxygen level in the room dropped as the men gasped. Impossible. Couldn't be. They weren't even sure what they were looking for, but these two found it and got it away from its keepers? They couldn't. Except...except this was Heather. And she excelled at the impossible, didn't she? Heather's eyes were drifting closed again.  
  
"Heather?" Tynell called urgently from a million miles away. He patted her face lightly. "Heather, where's the key? You can rest all you want in a minute, but I need to know where the key is."  
  
Her eyes opened briefly and the bitterest of smiles crossed her lips. "The key," she muttered and then let out a harsh, brittle little laugh. "Is me."  
  
Heather's eyes shut again and for a while, all was darkness. 


	15. Panic

Cameron was expecting to come onto a relatively quiet ward so that he could give his mother the good news that Cole had woken up for a few minutes and seemed to be getting stronger. When the elevator doors opened and he could hear screaming, he instinctively knew that somehow, his mother had to be involved. Those weren't howls of pain. That was pure terror, and as he started sprinting towards the source, remembered from his younger years how easily his mother could inspire that kind of fear in the soul.  
  
"MOM!" he yelled, seeing the scene. He grabbed his mother around the waist and hauled her backwards. One second he had her and the next he was on the ground, painfully reminded of why he didn't ever try going one on one with his mother.  
  
Alicia was already on the nurse again. Some beefy male nurse grabbed her arm, but she flicked him off of her like some particularly revolting bug. "YOU CAN'T DELAY ME AGAIN, BITCH!" Alicia screamed at the half-fainting girl. "WHERE IS SHE?"  
  
Now Cameron understood. Between the nurse that had run into Heather's room and the girl being strangled by his mother, Cameron could get enough thoughts to know that Heather wasn't in her room anymore.  
  
He grabbed his mother's left arm, grateful for the X-5 strength that gave him the slightest bit of leverage over his mother and yanked her back. "SHE DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING!" he yelled in her face.  
  
Alicia paused for just a second. "She doesn't know anything, Mom. Trust me, she's scared of you, not of what she's done."  
  
If it had been anyone else, Alicia would have gone to work in earnest on the girl. But this was Cameron. If there was anyone she would be willing to trust Heather's safety to, it would be one of her other children. And Cameron was a stronger telepath than even Daniel. If he said the nurse wasn't in on it, then she wasn't.  
  
Cameron said a silent prayer of thanks when he saw he had gotten through to his mother. Had he not been there, a whole lot of people would be in a world of hurt until someone admitted to knowing where Heather was. "Call your father," she said sharply. "I'm getting the security tapes."  
  
She took off at a sprint. Cameron had no doubt his mother knew exactly where security was and how to get the tapes from the surveillance cameras around the hospital. Someone might get hurt in the process, but he wasn't about to stand in her way. It always marveled him how such a little thing could pack such a punch. Even the male X-6's didn't want to tangle with her.  
  
Nurse Laurie was sobbing hysterically. The other nurses on the ward were dazed, too frightened to even call security after seeing how easily she dispatched the one male nurse. He was going to stay far away from Aunt Jhondie when she heard about what happened at her hospital, that was for sure. For once, it was completely not his fault.  
  
"Call Dr. Carter," he ordered one nurse, and once one started moving, they all seemed to break the paralysis, taking care of Laurie and one risking his life to follow Alicia. Not that he would be able to catch up to her, but it was good to be able to do something. The other nurse went to check on the other patients and make sure they were unhurt.  
  
Cameron grabbed his cell. All this and Emilie was going to be pissed that he took off while she was still on a dive. He dialed Daniel's home number, wondering why exactly he had gotten out of bed that morning.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Zack had tried sleeping for a while, but that wasn't happening this night. He should be exhausted. It had been a long time since he had a day this grueling. Even the twins' little escapade last winter hadn't been like this. He knew those two. They landed on their feet. He and Alicia had just trailed along to make sure they came back to the US and not hidden in another country for a while. Yes, they had been in some danger, but not enough to provoke a mortal panic.  
  
He finally got up and wandered towards the kitchen. When you can't sleep, eat. It was something to do at any rate until his turn to watch over Heather. And Alicia was going to change shifts. That was not negotiable. He slid towards the kitchen doorway and then noticed a small light was on. He smiled when he heard a baby's happy gurgle.  
  
Daniel was sitting at the breakfast table, feet propped on a chair, with Zachary resting against his bent legs. "And then the ambassador tried to deny it, but I had the evidence right there. Some people might call it blackmail, but I say that's half of good journalism," he said to the small infant in his lap, and then tickled the baby's tummy, getting another happy little noise from him.  
  
"I used to do that to you," Zack said softly. Daniel looked up, surprised. He wasn't used to someone being able to walk up behind him. If he couldn't hear him, then thoughts gave the person away.  
  
"I don't need as much sleep as Cyra," Daniel replied as Zack sat down at the table. Daniel smiled, looking a little embarrassed. "I would do this for Tanya and she always seemed to like staying up half the night as long as I was talking to her. I know they can't understand me, but..." he wasn't sure how to finish.  
  
Zack nodded. "I know." He let out a little laugh. "I think you were born to be a journalist. I would talk to you and you would stare at me like you knew exactly what I was saying and remembering it all for a story you were planning."  
  
Daniel grinned. "Could never fool you guys could I?"  
  
"You always reminded me of Max. If there was trouble to be found, you made sure you were in the middle of it."  
  
Daniel laughed again. His smile faded. "I had to do it, Dad. I know you're still not happy about it, but how was I supposed to live with myself if I didn't do something?"  
  
"You decide on what is priority in life and abide by it." Zack's words were cold as the tone. Daniel had never wondered what was going on with one of his siblings while he was gone. He had never had to burst in without a second to lose and save one of them from death or capture. Zack knew he and Alicia had protected the kids so that they would be able to have some normalcy in their lives. Maybe they had done it too well. The kids knew the dangers they were in but couldn't really appreciate them.  
  
"I remember what Mom did when I was five and those guys tried to get me and Heather," Daniel said softly. "I think she thinks I was too young and didn't understand, but I saw. And that's something that doesn't just go away. I've talked to Heather and she can't see Mom like that. Mom's the one that can make killer blueberry muffins and yeah, once upon a time she was a badass, but that's when she was a kid. But I remember. She wiped the blood off of her hands and then picked us up and walked out of there like that was nothing to her. And I think it wasn't anything to her."  
  
Daniel met his father's gaze evenly. "I don't think I could do what she did. She ripped those men up and didn't hesitate for a second. I remember seeing internal organs and hearing them screaming over and over and there was absolutely no mercy from her. I know I can't do that. So how am I supposed to protect my daughter and son?"  
  
"Public outrage means very little to the people making the decisions," Zack replied. "They will always find funding from somewhere else."  
  
Daniel gave him a wry little grin that was painfully like Alicia's when she was proud of herself for doing something particularly evil. "But you have no idea how many of them have dirty little secrets they don't want exposed. I'm not willing to black ops moves to take care of them. But I am willing to play dirty. I normally don't use telepathy to get what I want. For this...I played very, very dirty. There's a reason the Congressional sub- committee didn't throw me in jail when I told them to get bent."  
  
Zack couldn't help a small smile. That was his boy all right. Before he could say anything, Liz came half-stumbling into the room as she finished pulling up her jeans and zipping them, trying to talk to Brandt as she moved. "I don't know!" she cried. "Cam's not talking to me but something's wrong and..." she broke off seeing her father and brother in the kitchen.  
  
"Liz are you sure you're not just...getting some nerves?" Brandt questioned. "Like when Cameron was worried about those National Geographic people being there? You were about to fly down there thinking he was getting eaten by a shark."  
  
She shook her head. "Something's wrong," she announced to Zack and Daniel. "I don't know what exactly, but I'm going to the hospital right now."  
  
"Liz..." Zack said warningly.  
  
"I'm not asking you to understand," she snapped sharply, running her hands through her hair. That alone got Zack worried. The only time Liz ever got that snappish was because of her twin. "Just accept that a minute ago, he went from worried to in pain. I don't know what's going on, but I'm going to be there now."  
  
The phone rang. Zack had it in his hand in an eye blink. "Cameron?"  
  
Cameron didn't waste the time to ask how he had known he would be calling. "Dad, you need to get down here now. Heather's missing; Mom's flipping out and...tell Liz to stop panicking, I'm okay."  
  
Zack didn't waste time. "Heather went missing," he said sharply, hanging up the phone.  
  
"Keys are by the door," Daniel replied quickly. "I'll..." but there wasn't anyone to hear his words, just the slamming of the front door as the three other people ran to the car in the garage. "Let everyone know," Daniel finished to the empty air.  
  
He gathered Zachary up and headed upstairs quickly to wake Lon and let Cyra know they were going back to the hospital. The long day looked like it was going to be an even longer night. 


	16. Directions

By the time Zack got to the hospital, he knew to go directly to the security room. Cameron had calmed down and filled Liz in on some of the details while they drove. It was a little eerie for Brandt when Liz was repeating some of her discussions with Cameron. He had never seen her use her connection with her brother so extensively and precisely before. She had known when he was upset, but they were rarely in range to have sustained conversations like this. But when they got to the hospital, they knew that Jhondie was heading there and that Alicia was reviewing tapes to see where Heather was.

The security guard's nose had stopped bleeding by the time that Zack got to where his wife was watching Heather's departure from the hospital. The guard had almost called the cops when the little she-devil had smacked him to the floor when he tried to stop her from looking at the tapes. One of the nurses had shown up and kept him from getting more security involved. The guard realized that these people were not only related somehow to the chief of staff, but he had let a seriously injured patient leave the hospital unchecked. Better to keep his mouth shut and save his job then call attention to a blunder.

Alicia had watched the scene twice when Zack came up behind her. She hit the playback again and both of them watched as Heather slipped through the lobby. Alicia changed cameras and Heather crawled into the taxi. There was a pause for a moment and then it took off. Just before it got out of range, the license plate was visible.

"She knew I was there," Alicia said softly. "Took stuff from my bag. I'm the only one who would have that. And she still left."

Zack put his hands on her shoulders. "She's too much like us," he said. "She had a mission to complete. And nothing was going to stand in her way."

Alicia froze the tape on the taxi as it drove away. The license plate was visible. "I have no idea what was so important to her," she said softly, "but I bet that driver would remember where he dropped her off at."

"Jhondie's ready to pull the tube out of Cole," Xander announced, poking his head into the room.

Alicia quickly wrote down the name of the cab company and the license plate. She handed it to Xander on the way out. "I want to know where the driver of this cab is," she stated, the order obvious. He glanced at it, memorizing the contents in a second. The cab driver better not be part of this, Xander thought as he called a few people on the way downstairs. Between his connections and Lon's, it would be like the guy never existed at all.

They went down to the ICU. Jhondie was actually letting them in the room as long as nobody disturbed any of the other patients. Cole was awake, still not looking well, but better than before. He seemed more alert at least. Jhondie had taken note of all of his vitals, wanting to be able to hear what he had to say, but she wasn't about to endanger her patient for any reason.

"Cole," she said, moving so that he could see her. "I'm going to count to three and then pull the tube out. I want you to breathe out as I pull, okay?" He nodded slightly. "You're going to want to cough when it comes out. That's perfectly natural, but I want you to try not to. If you do, try to do it as gently as possible. There's a lot of stitches holding you together right now and I don't want to have to cut you back open to fix a few."

She motioned to the others to give her some room and then detached the ventilator tube from the machines. His oxygen levels still looked good. There was still a kit there just in case though. "One," she said, taking hold of the plastic mouthpiece. "Two, three, breathe out," she ordered as she pulled the long tube out of his throat.

Try not to cough, Cole thought as the tube came out. Yeah, right. Try having someone sandblast the inside of your throat and see if you can keep from coughing. He gasped, trying to cough in dry, heaving breaths rather than choking. One real cough got through, setting off a web of pain that radiated throughout his whole body. He felt something touch his lips and realized that Jhondie was offering him a straw. He took in a mouthful of water, letting it rehydrate his mouth before swallowing. That helped soothe the irritation, somewhat, but his throat still felt like someone had lit a blowtorch and aimed it down his throat.

After a minute, he relaxed back into his bed. He hurt. Sleep sounded so good. But if they were all there, then... "Heather?" he croaked out. "Is she..."

"She wasn't seriously injured," Jhondie said quickly. "We're expecting..."

Alicia cut her off neatly with a quick move. She grabbed the chair that had been beside the bed, whipping it around so that she was sitting backwards and leaning so that her and Cole were at eye level. "Situation," she said sharply. "Heather's non-critical, left alone for a few minutes and gets up and leaves without briefing anyone. Lon's been to the motel where you were staying and the bus station locker. I'm assuming she left because of what you two were setting up in that motel. Where did she go?"

Jhondie would have thrown Alicia out but Cole seemed to respond to her attitude. "Rendezvous with Ty." Lon smirked at Xander behind Alicia's back. He told Xander that Ty was involved somehow. The money that would exchange hands later was just a way to drive the point home.

"Where?"

"She was on the phone with Ty getting the coordinates when Victoria..." his words trailed off and he glanced over at the calm features of his wife. They had already been the motel and the locker which meant...was it possible to be too good? "It was a set-up," he said more to Janice than anyone. "We had to make it look good or else."

"I know," Janice said softly. "I know you better than that."

That could have gone much worse, Cole knew. And God only knew what Zack was going to do to him if he heard the whole story. Oh well. He wanted to laugh. Heather had left to meet with Ty anyways. He had thought that the only person he knew with a bigger set than Heather was Alicia. Now he was starting to wonder if the kid had finally managed to outrank her infamous mother.

"Victoria was the key to getting into a protected area," he said. "Nobody can know we got in and switched the target. Her brother's in charge and it's a voice recognition system. Best I've seen. We managed to get it changed though to Heather's voice." He had to stop. It was amazing how even this much effort was exhausting. Even breathing seemed to wear him out.

Xander's phone rang. He grabbed it stepped out of the cubicle for s second. "Cole," Alicia pressed, "What were you two doing working together? What was involved?"

Xander stepped back in before Cole could respond. "Got a home address on the cab driver."

Jhondie glanced at Zack, motioned to Cole with her eyes and shook her head. He got the message. Cole needed to rest and not be interrogated. He grabbed Alicia's arm. "Lon's got a badge, he can make it look official when we question the driver."

Alicia glanced down at her brother. Yeah, he was tired. Well, so was she, it was her kid that was missing and she had no idea what was going on. He did. Zack's grip tightened. "All that matters is locating Heather," he said sharply. She had to give in to that. The interests of national security could go to Hell. Their daughter was going to come first.

Xander stayed at the hospital to coordinate the communications. Janice stayed with Cole and the twins were near the ICU as well. Cole and Heather had obviously been playing with some nasty stuff and if someone had sent Victoria to kill them, then they might try again. Together, the twins were much stronger than as two individuals. Nobody was getting through to Cole without them sliding into their minds and finding out every intention. Xander wanted to question Cole more, but Jhondie had told him under no uncertain terms that if he tried before morning, she would bend him like a pretzel and shove him down the laundry shoot. He believed it.

Lon had thought it would be best for him to go alone to the cab driver's house, but he didn't want to get killed by both Alicia and Zack for even suggesting such a thing. Jhondie had loaned Alicia a jacket though to cover her sweats. On Alicia it hung much further down, but at least she had the semi-appearance of respectability. Lon just hoped Zack would keep her under control long enough to find out where the guy had taken Heather. But if the guy decided to jerk them around, then God help him, because he couldn't imagine someone surviving both Alicia and Zack when one of their children was concerned.

At that hour, traffic was rather light for New York. They managed to make it to the Brooklyn address in half an hour. Not much was said, though Lon managed to convince them that since he was the one with the FBI identification, he needed to be the one to talk. That was fine. Though they agreed to easily. Lon had a bad feeling this guy was very close to hurt no matter if he was just an innocent bystander.

They got to the apartment building. It wasn't a bad area really, not high income by any means, but certainly not a slum. Lon knocked on the door with an official cop-knock. It had taken years of practice to perfect pounding on the door with enough force to be authoritative, but not enough to sound like a psycho was beating down your door. He pounded three times, paused for a few seconds, and then slammed the door again.

A minute passed and all three of them could hear stumbling from inside. The door flung open and a grizzled man in a faded plaid robe stood in the door. His robe was lazily tied, exposing a yellowed undershirt and the hint of blue boxer shorts. A woman was behind him, standing back near the entrance to a hallway, her hair wound up in pink spongy curlers, a yellow robe wrapped tightly around her body.

"Whaddya want?" he demanded angrily, eying the strange trio blearily.

Lon ignored the aggressive stance of the man in front of him. He was a veteran of these kinds of challenges. "George Bateman?" he asked.

"Yeah, so?" He glanced back. "Call the cops."

Lon's hand was up, the letters FBI glaring off of his credentials. "Special Agent Lon Bryant, FBI," he stated arrogantly.

The woman inside paused. Bateman looked confused. "Who are they?" he demanded, trying to cover up the instant stab of fear. "I haven't done nothing."

Lon leaned forward conspiratorially. "You don't want to know who they're with," he said in a very low voice, the tone implying more of a warning than the words alone. Bateman looked at the other man and woman in the hall. She was a little thing, not much of a worry, but she wasn't even looking at him. Her attention was focused down the hall and towards the elevator. Lookout, he thought. The other man hadn't said a word, but he was staring directly at him, not even blinking. Bateman had served some time in the Army. He knew that look. It was the bleak wintry expression of a man that was about to take a life, not because he had to, but because he chose to.

"You picked up a fare at St. Luke's earlier," Lon said briskly. "A young woman. Red hair, blue eyes. Where did you take her?"

"I...I picked up a lot of people today," Bateman blustered. "I don't know where they all went."

"We're not concerned with all of your fares today," Lon added, sounding just shy of friendly. "But this person is of...special concern to us. How many young women have you picked up from the hospital today, very late? Probably your last fare of the night. I could get a warrant for obstruction of justice if you don't want to talk, but you could just tell us and save a lot of trouble."

"Agent Bryant," Alicia finally said, very calmly, "I don't think he's willing to cooperate. Your instructions were clear. If he's obviously hiding something, then you are to leave and we will handle the situation."

She might have been small, but her voice was scary as hell, Bateman thought. There was nothing there. No inflection, just matter of fact absolute coldness. "No!" he said quickly. "Yeah, I remember her. Broken arm. That's what she said. But she didn't have me drop her off at an address, just a street corner. Went down an alley." He was starting to sweat. The woman still wasn't looking at him and he wondered if he would have time to scream before the other man disabled him. He cursed himself for being so tempted by that hundred-dollar bill the girl had slid through the wire mesh.

"I really hope you remember the street you took her to," Lon said, trying not to smile. Alicia had picked up on the game so easily. Hell, she had been the one to invent it. They had interrogated someone just like that a dozen times or more when they were kids. It was a variation of good-cop, bad-cop, but it worked. And fear was an amazing stimulus when it came to getting someone to remember something.

Bateman thanked God that he knew. He had a head for streets, had to being a cabbie in this city. He remembered places easily. He told the agent everything he knew and then waited. The guy didn't write it down and that made him sweat even more.

Lon gave him a clipped smile. "Thank you for your cooperation," he said. "I hope we won't be bothering you again. He turned and left, Alicia and Zack following. They managed to make it out of the building before Lon burst into laughter. Alicia and Zack weren't amused, but he couldn't help it.

"Sorry," he snickered as they got into the car. "But I haven't seen anyone that rattled since that time you, me and Xander questioned Ambassador Al-Jafad."

A tiny smile touched the edges of Alicia's mouth. "Xander was so pissed."

"Pissed on, not off."

Alicia couldn't help the laugh. She hated Lon for doing this to her, but he was always good at being able to bring down the tension level so that it was easier to focus. She glanced at Zack. "We were questioning the guy and he was so scared, he wet himself. Xander was right there and ended up, well, getting it on him."

Zack could only shake his head, somewhat amused at the little glimpses into Alicia's early life, but still not able to let himself relax at all. Until they had Heather back safe and sound, there wasn't going to be room for relaxing.


	17. The Rest of the Team

Alicia, Zack and Lon were a block away from where the cabbie had said he dropped Heather off at, sitting silently in the car. Alicia had hoped there would be some small sign as to where exactly Heather was supposed to go once she got there, but apparently Ty had given her the exact directions when they were on the phone. Damn. They didn't have time to search every possibility.

Nobody disappeared without a trace. That was something that they all had learned at a young age. No matter how good the person was, there was always a trace. And a young woman, badly injured, acting more on determination than anything wouldn't be the type to remember to clean up her trail. She had been too determined to get where she had wanted to go to think about hiding herself along the way. It would just be a variation of the things they had all done out in the woods before, tracking a moving target.

They got out of the car, moving fast but utterly quiet. Nobody watching them right then would have mistaken them for being human. Ghosts, maybe, but not human. They fanned out in the alley, looking for any sign of where Heather might have gone, communicating solely with hand signals and gestures. The alley was narrow, but then emerged into a wider area that was long and dotted with doors. Some were boarded and covered with gang symbols, warning people to stay out. Others looked like entrances to tiny businesses that no decent person ever wanted to walk into.

Plenty of doors to choose from, but none of them were going to waste the time to look through them all until they found Heather. There were a few tiny hints though. A small piece of cloth from the jacket Heather had taken had been caught on a dumpster and ripped off about twenty feet down. Good. Alicia didn't want to know if that was a real head in a jar in a window next to one door or not. A little further down, several red-gold strands of hair were stuck in some gum smeared on a wall. Alicia could almost see her daughter, hurt, stumbling, leaning against the wall for support for a moment.

It was Zack that noticed the blood. Just a small amount, but enough. He silently motioned Alicia over to the stain on the door. Lon was a little further ahead looking for more clues. They didn't need any more. Alicia trailed the comma shaped smear of blood. Heather was bleeding again. No surprise since she was still barely stitched together and trying to do too much. She had blood on her hand and had knocked on this door. Alicia took the side of her hand and pressed it against the bloodstain, showing how Heather had probably pounded on this door with her fist. Lon had noticed their attention and glided over to them, quiet as death itself.

Zack glanced up. It was always better for Alicia to deal with the X-6 direct. Although she had opted out of the program years ago, they still deferred to her. If Ty were in there, she would be the one to back him off. Zack could, most likely would, hurt him, but that wouldn't make him talk. There were a couple of windows on the second story. Zack pointed to Lon, himself and then to the windows. Lon got the point. Alicia was going to go direct and they would back her up. They moved quietly to the side, leaping up into windowsills and then through the windows, silent as shadows.

Alicia listened for a long moment, her enhanced hearing on red alert for any sounds at all of a struggle upstairs. Nothing. She waited a moment longer, knowing that Zack and Lon would only need seconds to move into a good position. Neither of them would need a layout. Zack was, well, Zack. Lon had a good instinct for buildings; he was the one she always wanted for urban work, but Zack simply never let anything get between him and the mission objective.

All was silence once more. Alicia took a deep breath and then swung her leg in a hard kick, letting her muscles move with absolutely no check on speed or strength. The door didn't fly open. The doorjamb gave a valiant effort, and then splintered as the hinges were ripped out of the wood. Alicia heard the guns being drawn, but in the second it took them to draw, she had already scanned the room, found her target, and was on the move.

Ty managed to half-turn, but wasn't able to even start a defense before he was hit full on. Alicia barely slowed with the contact, grabbing onto Ty as he flew backwards. Ty slammed into the drywall, his body crashing through it and then being ripped out and spun around so that his body was in front of Alicia's, effectively putting him between her body and any shots that his men might have tried to fire.

They froze like that for a moment, Alicia's fingers hooked claw-like at his throat. Her blue eyes were chilling and he knew without a doubt that she didn't give a damn if he lived or died. With a contemptuous flick, she tossed him backwards, sprawling him onto the floor.

Ty was on his feet in a heartbeat. "Hold your fire," he ordered his men sharply. Not that he thought one of them had a chance to hit her, but that she would have no problem killing them first and then dealing with him if they provoked her. Absolute Zero, he thought. That had been her nickname given by a norm soldier years ago. She had been frightening then when she was just obeying orders. What she was like now left that far in the dust.

"Did Heather ever tell you," Alicia said conversationally, her tone at complete odds with expression, "about what happened to her and Daniel when they were very small?"

She was moving, heedless of the men with guns, circling. Ty was keeping movement with her. She had gotten the drop on him once. He wasn't going to let her get it on him again. Alicia ignored his silence and continued as if they were discussing the weather. "Some damn fools thought they could snatch my kids while they were with a babysitter. It was a smart set-up. Zack was gone, and I had left them for a few hours with a friend. There were four of them plus some woman."

She stopped dead, her voice going to ice. "Remember when you almost puked in Afghanistan? Trust me, you wouldn't have been able to hold back then. The last one, the leader of their pathetic little band, I strangled him." She paused. "With his own intestines." She shrugged casually. "A little over the top, maybe, but then that insured another ten years before anyone got the courage to try again. And that was only when they knew that mommy and daddy weren't around."

There was a moment of icy silence. "For the sake of every person in this room, you want to tell me where she is."

"There's more going on than you can possibly…" Ty started to say, but Alicia cut him off easily.

"Tell me that the president of the country is dying and she's the only way to save him and I'll tell you I don't give a damn," Alicia shot back. "He's just a politician. There's more where he came from."

"You can't intimidate me anymore, Alicia," Ty said. "You're not authorized."

A cold smile edged her mouth. So he wanted to make this a contest of egos did he? "Don't challenge me, 674. You've never been able to win against me. And that was when I liked you." Ty's expression didn't change, but Alicia knew she had hit home. It had always been hard on him to be second-rate. He had been the leader of the Beta Team, true, but there was a huge gulf between Alpha and Beta. Everyone knew it. The rest of Beta knew it, and dealt with it, but Ty always thought he might be better than he was. Among norms, of course, he was magnificent, and even with Heather simply because of her lack of experience. But now he was up against the real thing and Alicia was not pleased with his childish attempts at dismissal.

"Obstruction of justice," Ty countered. "You're not above the law anymore."

"Yes, I am."

Her statement was chilling in its absolute truth. Alicia gave it a moment to sink in. "I want my daughter," she said. "And Ty, if I don't get her right now, I'm going to leave."

The other men in the room were confused, but Ty knew exactly what she was talking about. Ambush. She might, might not kill him because he was X-6 and there were so few of them. But the X-5 wouldn't have a problem with that. Especially one X-5 in particular who happened to be the girl in question's father. Ty didn't know how many or where they were, but he had no doubt that Alicia had the place well covered.

"Put your weapons away," he ordered. The other men hesitated. "Now!" he snapped. "We're surrounded," he added with a little mocking bow to Alicia.

She smirked in return. "Tell me you took her to a hospital and all's forgiven."

"Manticore is back on the market," Ty said calmly. "You're right that nobody is going to risk going after a live specimen anymore. But thanks to that damn article, it got a few people thinking. The government doesn't throw anything away. All of the original documentations and experiments and how-to manuals are still in existence. You're so damn worried about Heather, what about every other one of us including your other kids and your beloved X-5's?"

"And you didn't think to tell anyone?"

"It was, and still is, a matter for the FBI and military to deal with."

If Alicia hadn't been so shocked, she might have decked him right there. Pride, she thought bitterly. He had to be the hero. Had to be the one to save them all. How it must have hurt having Cole involved. Heather, not so much because she looked up to him, but Cole was Alpha and he knew how things had been in the past. So Ty had to be the hero and now Cole had escaped death by inches and her daughter was out there hurt and bleeding. It was so tragic, Alicia almost laughed.

"Let me guess," Alicia said, "Cole and Heather were either the buyers or the delivery people since they could be most trusted with those documents."

"There's more going on than you know," Ty said. "We already lost Cole, and delaying is putting Heather in more danger."

"First, Cole's not dead. Second, Heather isn't on a jump team. I don't know who is in danger because of a delay, but all other X-series are accounted for."

Ty blinked. "Heather said…" There wasn't time, but he couldn't help but take a moment of huge relief.

"She was drugged and in a great deal of pain," Alicia replied. "And this isn't the first time Jhondie's surgical skills have been considered something close to miraculous."

"Sir," one of the men spoke up. Greer was Ty's second-in-command, and while he could appreciate the family arguing and power plays, there was one thing that Ty was missing.

Ty glanced over at his second. Greer gestured towards Alicia. "She's smaller than Raleigh."

Alicia's eyes flicked towards him for a moment and then back to Ty. "He won't be the first person to make that mistake," she warned, readying for an attack from all sides. "You know that." Too many men had thought because she was small, she would be the weak link. And every time someone thought that, Alicia's personal body count tended to grow.

Ty was looking at her thoughtfully. "No," he said to Greer. "Out of the question."

Greer snorted. "Damn it, Raleigh had to go through that pipe because she was the only one who could fit. You're the best at hand-to-hand I've ever met and Mommy Dearest here just put you down without breathing hard. I don't care if she can't do the mind-voodoo. There's still time to get the kid back."

Ty hesitated. Sure, Alicia would be better for this part than Heather would ever have been. From Heather, he knew that Alicia hadn't gone soft living on the outside. And from the display she had just put on, he knew she would be able to handle it. But this wasn't her place anymore.

"Sir," Greer said, "She's five years old. Give her a chance."

Alicia's eyes narrowed. "Is there a child you've neglected to mention?" Xander had told her Ty was the one that actually liked kids. But none of them were allowed to have any. They all knew the risks, and now looking back, all of them were glad they didn't have to have the same worries that Alicia did as her children grew up. But there was Ty. Of all of them, Alicia could see Ty having a kid and letting it get passed off as pure norm.

Ty looked at her grimly. "The granddaughter of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was kidnapped. The ransom is Manticore."

Alicia thought for a second. The reasonable thing to do was to fake the information and give it to the kidnappers. The stuff was so complex it would be a while before they would know. That would buy time at least and really, finding a kidnapped person was, well, child's play. She had lost count of how many times she had done it simply because there wasn't anything good on TV and someone had asked for a hand. Easy and got a lot of people into the debt of the United States. But they hadn't done that.

"There's a mole," she said softly.

Ty nodded. "We were going to do a switch. Fast and quiet. Only problem was we needed a key and someone small enough to get in there. We were going to go with the second plan because we couldn't get the key."

Alicia eyes widened. Ty had a second to relish the fact that he had shocked Alicia. He didn't know how quite yet, but he had slipped one in on her and damn it felt good. "Heather has it," she said, remembering Heather's mutterings as she lay in the hospital bed.

"I'm not losing this chance," Ty said. "We can get the kid. But there's only one shot at getting her and the mole. Heather's got to be part of this, like it or not."

"I don't," Alicia said. She looked away from Ty and let out a whistle, letting it run up and down the musical scales. There was the slightest noises from upstairs in response. She met Ty's gaze again. "If it was just the kid, I'd tell you to go to Hell."

He nodded. "It's never 'just' anything with our kind," he said.

"No," she agreed. "But then again, that is what makes the games so hard to stay out of."


End file.
